UNDERTALE: Unforeseen Benevolence (OLD)
by Required Idiocy
Summary: CURRENTLY BEING REWRITTEN ELSEWHERE: CHECK NOTES IN BEGINNING AND END OF STORY PLEASE. The loss of innocence is a common reassurance in this unseen world. How will this world react to a soul with their innocence long gone? Is there truly a justifiable reason to brand a soul as a "monster?" He'll say otherwise... *This is a WIP, chapters will be added as completed*
1. Undue Hospitality

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

 **If you enjoyed this story or wish to fully enjoy it _PLEASE check_ out the end notes following the final chapter.**

I

Undue Hospitality

(Revised)

Darkness; a light breeze to carry the cold weather, utter tranquility; a small development undergoes another peaceful night resting on the canvas of open country and forests. It's the middle of nowhere where every route is scenic with any adjacent forms of civilization, urban to suburban were just outside of a stone's throw, the residents of Kocrenzi valley lived in their own little world. Adventurous types would venture to this secluded land only to leave shortly after bearing disappointment and inability to realize that not every town possess nooks and crannies, dark pasts, or secrets to find. Nobody could ever recall the last exciting tales they witnessed, and yet they'd desire nothing but the lack of them. Wisened travelers branded this town as the "Evil Twin of New York City" The town that always sleeps…

It woke up tonight.

A ghastly shrill scream broke the illusion of silence in the town and only grew in size and numbers, the ear piercing chorus of sirens were soon accompanied by the roar of machines, overshadowing the noise into a dull blur. The lights soon followed as the flags for this cacophonous ensemble; Red and Blue, Blue and Red, with the blinding white searchlights to sit front stage.

Everyone could see the sight before their eyes, standing drowsily on their porches in bewilderment, peeking through ajar doors and blinds, even glancing through windows with hands on cupped over their ears. Car after car after car the dirt roads gave way to the army of police vehicles and where the sky permitted dozens of helicopters netted the land with lights. Would any explanation be plausible for the machines storming the land? The answer was was spotted by a scared child glancing out his window, vaulting over fences at full steam.

The man took to the backyards fenced in neatly boxed roads, he could picture these plots like a large ice tray if his focus wasn't solely on running. The only thing his mind could scream over the thunderous roar was _go where the cars can't go!_

He jumped over the thirteenth fence and into the thick brush leaving the development as fast as he entered with the army tailing behind. He barreled through the dense forest floor, the lights from above were caught by the thick canopies and the only breaks in the absolute darkness flashed through the trees in a fashion of a maddened strobe.

Soon the road vanished from the man's peripheral vision along with the binding gaze of the police lights leaving only slivers of obstructed and confused searchlights desperately trying to pierce the thick leaves. The darkness subsided as dozens of maglights pursued him with angered voices ringing out in the distance. While the voices were ultimately indistinguishable, the man could hear another set of noises. They were approaching him faster than the officers. The man heard those noises prior to this moment, two hours into his pursuit when a dispute between him and his vehicle's fuel gage lead them to part ways in a ditch, when he first bounded on foot in a full sprint… barking.

He turned his head in horror, the unseen terrors gained on him covered by the blackness of the forest floor in true nightmarish fashion, the flashlights for the brief moments their gaze hit him only allotted the man blinks of the snarling beasts. He looked down at his feet and forced his completely exhausted body to push itself further, flames erupted in his lungs scorching his throat and airways, liquid needles ran through his heart to bestow upon him a pain never experienced prior to this night. Yet in his rampant sprint he failed to notice his insides being figuratively torn to pieces nor the fact that the ground had begun a sharp incline, his only concern was to get away.

The canopy gave away as the man ascended up the narrowing land he was surprised by the reoriented searchlights finding their marks and blinding him in their unforgiving gaze. Even without the use of his eyes, the man furiously continued his ascent and eventually employed the use of his hands as the incline quickly became aggressive, to his fortune the incline was less difficult on his hands than it was for the paws of his pursuing canines, however they were not completely out of play and he would be reassured of this by one pair of jaws that reached his arm as he reached a plateau on the mountain.

The surge of pain resonated throughout his already ailing body and only brought the other intense pains to his mind. Amazingly, he was still running with the beast tearing through his clothing and skin, blood spattered like raindrops collectively up to his chest and head, the dog's fur became a canvas for the liquid as well.

The man struck the dog with blow after blow as he began staggering towards a perfectly straight wall of rock in the side of the mountain only dressed with a blanket of ivy leaves, there was nowhere left to run the army would soon catch up to him and it would be all over. The man couldn't fathom this idea quite yet as his mind was focused on removing the dog from his arm, without consideration he rammed himself into the rock wall with all his remaining might using the canine as a buffer.

Still attached to his arm, the man stumbled from the impact and barreled into the wall again. The dog whined in pain but still arrested the man's arm, he ran to the edge of the plateau to catch one final look at the officers scaling the mountain side with their canines following. The man used the last of his energy and might and charged for the ivy covered wall. Right before the impact the reflection of countless flashlights off the rock blinded him once more leaving only his ears to hear the footsteps careening towards him.

The weak barrier of loosened stones broke away with the ivy. The dog, stunned from the impact released the man's arm leaving him to fall into the crevice and into the dark void. The blinding lights, the footsteps, and the voices vanished as the blackness enveloped him. The world was overcome by an aura of complete blackness as he fell. His descent was interrupted by soft yet unforgiving ground with a defining _THUD!_ Stars clouded his fading vision, growing in numbers and size in a spectrum of darkening colors. A yellow star spoke to him, it's voice was unnaturally sweet but muffled by ringing.

"Oh my, that looked like _some_ fall." There was almost a hint of sarcasm in the voice as he drifted into unconsciousness. Once again, Darkness and utter silence took the stage.

"We lost visual on the suspect!, I repeat suspect has evaded arrest!" Of all the chaos flooding the radio, that particular message stood out from the device. The confused and angry voices continued to spill from the scanner promptly resting on the desk, the occupant reached to turn it off.

"CPT Lunezo Mordegrid" Rested on a name template next to the radio, Mordegrid let out a quivering and prolonged sigh as he sat back in his chair and twiddled his thumbs. The small party of officers in the room stared motionless at the captain.

"FUCK!" The captain shot out of his chair and pounded his desk with both hands sending various pens to the floor and spilling a mug with stale coffee.

One of the officers spoke up with counterfeit confidence, "That's just one team! One of the other units has to see him he can't just-"

Mordegrid continued on his rant accompanying each burst of profanity with another assault on the desk. "EVERY-FUCKING-TIME!" Mordegrid sat back in his chair and shakily reset his mug on top of the cold liquid before leaning back and placing his hands on his forehead. He leaned forward again to face the crowd in his office, "Four months… four months to get that lead and for what, just another colossal waste of resources and time… all because he *got away*."

Another officer chimed in "Sir this doesn't mean the pursuit is over, the teams just lost visual sight of him, we have multiple air units not to mention entire forces from three states over so-"

"Cut the bullshit Ferkinzie, if you're supposed to tell me that it was impossible to lose him because of all our units, then how the hell could he vanish?" Mordegrid edged closer to the man with each word- "Just-like-that?"

The man tried to retaliate, "Sir please, we don't know that he-" "Exactly! They don't know where he is because he got away just like has has been for three years!" The captain motioned to the pressboard littered with leads and clues. "Throughout our entire efforts to catch this piece of shit, we have pursued him over thirteen times, each pursuit costing more resources than the last and yet every time you come in here with a new lead you tell me." -Mordegrid put his fingers in quotes- "This time we got him!" "But sir-" Mordegrid sent the pressboard to the floor scattering thumbtacks and clippings. "EVERY TIME!"

The captain sat down in his chair for a third time and caressed his bridge with his fingers and let out a long sigh. "Try to put the whole story together with the teams, I need to make some calls you guys know the drill."

The group of officers vacated the room, one of them bent over to pick up the clippings.

Just leave it, they're useless now anyways." The man dropped the clutter and left closing the door behind him leaving Mordegrid alone in the drone of the air conditioner. Mordegrid opened the bottom drawer of his desk and brought a small glass and a bottle of bourbon to the top. After pouring the poison up to the brim on the glass he brought the scanner back to life and reintroduced the chaotic chatter to his office.

"We've got a 10-53, 10-91c, suspect has evaded police forces, repeat suspect has evaded police forces, requesting an ambulance on site, canine unit down."

Mordegrid downed the drink and reached for the phone on his desk but hesitated at the scanner's next outburst.

"Requesting ranger units for manhunt on suspect, suspect last seen in Kocrenzi Valley on north face of Mt Ebott."

Mount Ebott?, there was something oddly familiar about it but Mordegrid couldn't quite recall it, he was far passed the simple reasoning of Deja Vu as he was certain that this phrase had crossed him in the past. Edging away from the phone he approached the monitor on the desk and rescued the keyboard from the puddle of coffee now waterfalling off of the desktop.

"MOUNT EBOTT" He typed into the police record repository. But instantly like instinct he was only greeted by an error message on the screen. "Entry is contexted from ANOMALOUS CASES Access Denied." The message strobed slowly on the screen only to add to the captain's suspicion, he reached for the phone once again eyes locked on the screen.

There it was, resting on the veil of flowers almost surreal like illuminated by a shred of twilight from stories above. Toriel knew that she'd find _something_ in its place especially after the thunderous impact that boomed through the cavernous halls. She felt a degree of danger from the figure and etched closer at a slowed pace. It was definitely human but barely distinguishable by its condition. It was an adult male that couldn't be more than six feet tall with a slender build.

She felt a sickened doubt in the recess of her mind "Is it even alive?" It simply looked like a cadaver, the garments were covered in a thick veil of blackened filth not to mention soaked with blood and riddled with holes and tears. She examined the man himself, his face was partially obscured by his unkempt hair and various forms of facial damage, but she was still able to make out the expression. There was just something about his face that sent a shiver through her very being, it seemed to portray feelings of dread and misery.

Then there was movement as the petals of the golden flowers resting on the man's face swayed ever so slightly in a slow rhythm, he was still breathing. Toriel's trance from his expression broke upon this discovery and directed her attention to his left arm, the mangled appendage was bleeding profusely through the long sleeves and torn flesh. Yet through the damage she could read the most distinguishable markings on the arm "AR-7 BR-36."

As much as she wanted to ponder about the markings she knew that now was not the time for further hesitation, she lifted the limp body letting his other limbs hang freely except the bad arm and proceeded to leave the cavernous room. The man himself was surprisingly light even for his figure as most of the weight came from the large backpack attached to him along with the items cluttering his pockets. She was eager to see him if he woke up as he clearly had a story to tell.

"The growing stress on modern life and outside pressure can act as a breeding ground for these psychopathic tendencies putting an overbearing weight on a person leading to an eventual breakdown in otherwise normal persons like our suspect, his record previously barren we'd have no reason to expect these actions out of him and yet we can only imagine that he cannot either for-." The voice became sweet and innocent "-You're just like an angel, my book says so, I know why you never want me to see you when you get dressed because then I'd see your wings, I promise I won't tell nobody." The voice became gruff and impatient. "The least you can do is to get your ass up, you've been limp ever since we caught you snoring an office full of corpses, you really wanted to take credit for it… real proud of your work aren'tcha?" The black emptiness boomed. "GET UP!"

The nightmare was vanquished by the soft light of a lamp. The man shot up in a groggy haze as the echoing residue left his thoughts and gave way for his pounding heart. He calmed himself for a moment but anxiety returned to him when reality and circumstance returned to his mind.

 _Where… where am I?_ He surveyed his surroundings and was overcome with a sense of familiarity, he lay in a bedroom of sorts that seemed to belong to a child. It couldn't be another nightmare; he was sure that this was either reality or the most vivid and lucid dream yet.

He motioned to leave the bed and determined that this was very real by the acute pain and soreness of his entire body. He sat back down on the bed with an exhausted sigh, he figured that it would be wise to try to comprehend what had happened leading to this room before moving on but he could only remember the bleak feeling during the chase; the terrifying sense of danger, the demon dogs, climbing a stiff incine…. And the dog.

The man darted his attention to his destroyed arm in a quick panic trying to observe the damage and- nothing. He looked to see that the injury was very carefully cleaned, dressed, and bandaged. The sight of this also put another factor into introspection: His clothing was reduced to his undershirt and jeans. He considered the possibility that he had actually been arrested by the forces from last night but these accommodations were too friendly to match that possibility: Simply he wasn't wearing over fifty pounds of shackles in a stone cell. Which led him to his next hypothesis "Is this some sort of prison?"

He looked to his feet (Stripped of his boots, just socks) and steadily lifted himself up onto his legs, slowly and shakily heading for the door. When his hand reached for the knob a small surprise hit him: It was unlocked. The dim lights of the bedroom were overcome by the bright atmosphere of the world outside as the door creaked open.

The man squinted his eyes as he stepped out into the hallway. He seemed to be standing in a house with a comfortable rustic feel to it but yet there was something unsettling about the welcoming environment as the feeling of familiarity loomed throughout it. The man walked away from the door and out of the hallway into a larger room. Judging from the furniture, it appeared to be some sort of den with a large reading chair in the middle, its back facing the man.

He felt a stiffness in his joints and proceeded to free them up, he jumped at the sound of a female voice.

"Oh! I didn't think you'd wake up so soon." The large chair turned to elaborate the voice for the startled man. She stood up and looked down at the dumbfounded man, "In fact I almost doubted that you would wake up at all, you sure were in rough shape when I found you."

The man responded with a collection of stuttered and confused fragments of words and only managed to move his lips. "What… the hell?"

"Oh, excuse me, where are my manners? I'm Toriel, the groundskeeper for this place, I was tending to the flowers when you fell down here, you weren't conscious when I found you and I figured you would be more comfortable in a warm bed than the ground."

The man swallowed and regained his composure sheepishly looking at his arm, "So… this was you?" He looked back at the creature "Uh, thank you."

Toriel gave him a warm smile, "I wouldn't be able to stand seeing anyone in pain like that, you must be sore all over."

The man's face lightened slightly "Well, falling to the center of the earth probably didn't do my back any favors but I'm pretty sure I'd feel just as worse after the night I've had without the fall." He tried to chuckle but his sore throat only let out a weak cough. "Speaking of which where am I? The last thing I remembered was pounding myself into the side of a mountain and then falling through it."

Toriel looked slightly perturbed "Well- you must have entered the underground from the mountain, but I need to ask… pounding yourself into the side of a mountain?"

The man felt a sliver of embarrassment and didn't consider how his response would sound. "-Was trying to get rid of this dog on my arm, stupid thing almost got me caught I honestly thought they would've gotten me."

Toriel dropped the warm smile entirely and stepped back. "You were attacked by a dog, but you were being chased by someone-" Her anxiety grew. "-Are you in trouble?"

The man gasped slightly and put up his arms in a defensive stance. "Oh no-no-no-no no!" He looked around evasively for a moment. "It's all wrong, I didn't do anything wrong at all, those people were after me because…" He looked at the frightened groundskeeper and paused briefly." "Because-" His mind raced with elaborations,

Toriel looked aloof.

"-Because these people were after- my family!"(The only lie he could muster)

Toriel gasped and put her hand over her mouth in awe.

The man's tone grew in rapidity and gradually became frantic with each and. "And these people can't find my family and I have them hidden and I am the only one who knows how to get to them and they wanted me to tell and they were gonna hurt them! and-"

Toriel approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Ok! Calm down! They can't get you here, you're safe now, I'm sorry that I asked I really didn't know."

The man slowed his breathing.

"My goodness you're shivering, are you alright?"

The man nodded slowly and took a series of deep breaths "Yes, _I'm_ sorry, I didn't mean to get overworked like that, it's been like this for a long time."

Toriel tried to find some comfort for him "Well, they cannot hurt you anymore and I'm sure your family is fine."

The man gave her a confused look and hesitated, he exclaimed when his lie needed a supplement. "Oh! My family, oh god I need to get in touch with them-" His faux concern was made all the more genuine with his fear about the police force still looking for him.. "-I need to get back to them."

Toriel winced softly and walked back to her chair. "Um… doing that may be… it might… it's going to take…"

Both of them were at a loss for words. The man broke the silence "Oh no, don't worry about me, I've gotten away from these people many times, last night was just bad luck I just need-"

"No… that's not it" Toriel spoke in grim fashion, "While I do worry about you with those matters, that's not my main concern."

The main tilted his head slightly. "Then… what is it?"

Toriel looked down at her hands, twiddling her thumbs in a nervous fashion. "Humans-" She sighed "Humans and monsters don't have a very friendly past."

The man was taken back by the facts. "Monsters… so there's more of you-" He trailed the word for a few seconds. "-your kind down here?"

She continued, "We have seen all too much of it, too much violence and all too much killing." "Too much killing-"

The man repeated in a somber retaliation, "-I hear that a lot."

Toriel bypassed the interruption, "While I feel this way about it, I doubt everyone else down here will see it my way, they will come after you and then he'll kill you."

"He?"

Toriel didn't notice the question and proceeded with her speech. "It will just happen again and again, and it will be my fault for letting it repeat, I tell everyone how I can't take the killings anymore but it is me alone who lets the happen." Her eyes left the man and gazed into the distance looking at nothing. "It's like I can't even save one child let alone-"

"What the hell are you even talking about?!"

Her trance broke and she rubbed her eyes. "I'm sorry, I let the past burden me once more there's no sentiments from it anymore just heartache."

The man's voice became unsteady, seeping with trouble. "You just can't get used to it, I know." Before Toriel could retaliate that unexpected phrase the man changed the topic with an exaggerated perk in his tone. "I wouldn't lose an sleep over the fact that I'll be a marked man here, I'm used to it." He glanced around the den looking for something. "In fact it wouldn't be a problem at all- if I had my stuff, did you happen to see anything else where you found me by any chance?"

Toriel changed her tone as well, "Oh! Your belongings-" She began to make her way out of the room. "-Wait right there."

The man stood silently.

"Okay." Toriel returned with a large black backpack and boots on top.

There was a confused look on the man's face that quickly faded to relief. "I didn't recognize it at first, I haven't seen those things spotless in a long time-" His reassured voice turned into question, and his face turned to red. "You cleaned them? Oh jeez, thank you… I don't know what to say.

Toriel placed the items on the floor and smiled sheepishly at the man. "Well, I certainly couldn't allow something to exist in my house in the conditions that they were in, I mean they were just covered in grime and…" She looked around the room for words, the man finished for her.

"Blood- don't worry, it was probably mine." He held up the bandaged arm.

Toriel chuckled for a moment, "Right."

The man slid into the boots but left the backpack on the floor and looked back to Toriel with doubt.

"After all you've done for me, I really don't want to ask anymore but… I had a jacket and a vest on, do you have those with you too?"

Toriel rolled her eyes and bit her lip still sheepishly. "I was getting there- I really tried to clean them but they were in really bad condition, so bad that I had to throw them away?" Her nervous smile clashed with a disappointed look. "I'm really sorry it's a force of habit, I mean they were all torn up and just covered in holes!"

"Bullet holes"

The man opened his backpack and continued. "I guess I can't blame you there's only so much use you can get out of 'Bulletproof' equipment and I got quite a lot of use out of that vest."

Toriel was taken back by him. "Bullets… as in weapons?" She gasped when her question was answered by the weapon the man pulled from the bag.

He held a small black pistol in the air. "Well that's where bullets come from so I'm going to say yes."

She began to quiver and asked in a frightened voice, "So, does that mean you've- you used- you."

The man fed a magazine into the weapon, the click echoed through the den. "Used them?, I'm sad to say that I have, but I'll ask you to believe me that it was only in self defense."

She began to shake with an even more unsteady voice. "W-what are you going to do with that?"

The man paid no notice to her growing fear as he inserted the gun into his pocket followed by additional ammunition. "Like I said, self defense, you did say that I'm going to be in danger out there right?"

Toriel let horrible images plague her mind before grabbing the man's arm with slight panic. "No!"

The man gave her a skeptical glare and stood motionless.

"No! That is not the answer! You can't fix a world plagued by killing with _more_ killing!"

The man shrunk away with guilt, "Toriel I-"

"No, there is no reasoning to it, you don't have to reassure everyone down here of their fears about humans, you can convince them that it has changed!" Her tone was desperate only being matched with wet eyes, the look of anguish on her face reminded the man of something troubling, it only made him feel worse. "Promise me…" She put her other arm on his shoulder and stared into his very being.

"Promise you what?" The man's discomfort grew with her gaze.

"Promise me… that you won't use those awful things on any living soul down here."

He couldn't say anything in protest as Toriel begged him again in a childlike fashion, sending a shockwave of a remorse down his throat.

"Please." Her eyes were reddened, primed to begin an onslaught of tears. Her sorrowful gaze pierced into his soul as the expression on the caretaker's face brought on memories of similar grief in the man, so much that even he felt like crying.

"Okay… I won't hurt anyone, or at least I'll try." Still locked by Toriel's arms the man slowly retrieved the weapon from his pocket still locked into a stare with Toriel. The man pressed the small button on the gun and the magazine fell to the floor with a somber clatter, he let the gun fall from his limp hand with a stronger clatter. "There… see?"

Toriel failed to release her grip on the man but instead embraced him for a silent moment.

When she finally let the man go he stood up and hoisted the bag on his shoulders, "So- can you do me one last favor and show me where to go?"

Toriel watched as he picked up the weapon and discarded ammunition from the floor, she tried to appear unburdened but the somberness in her tone was obvious. "Sure… those stairs in the hallway you walked out of? Those will take you to the exit."

The man nodded and slowly moved towards the doorway when Toriel chimed.

"Wait! Don't leave!" The man stopped just in front of the mouth of the stairs and expected an additional protest from the groundskeeper.

"You can't go out there." Her voice was riddled with worry.

The man retaliated "It's OK I'll be able to handle what's out there, you don't need to worry about me."

Toriel ran passed the man into the furthest door down the hallway her voice trailing through the house "Not even that, please wait one more time!"

The man rolled his eyes and sighed.

Toriel returned to the stairwell. "I wanted to tell you that you cannot leave just like that."

The man examined himself, "What's wrong with me?"

She replied in a more… _maternal_ tone as if talking to a child. "It's cold out there and I don't want you freeze or catch a cold yourself."

The man had a hint of spite in his voice. "Well, I'd be fine in my jacket that you deemed unaccept-"

Toriel held out a red and black striped sweater. "Here"

Humbled on the spot, the man accepted the sweater and examined it, it seemed to fit his physique which only led him to ask, "Does this belong to someone else? Don't hear this the wrong way but there's no way it can be yours." The man glanced to Toriel again. "I mean you're like eight feet tall."

Toriel didn't find offense in his words. "Well you got me there, I made it myself that was my first go at sewing call it an experiment." She snickered "I really didn't know what I was doing back then you pointed out why it's too small for me and it was certainly too big for-" She froze.

The man tried to help her. "For?"

"Um, nobody-" She reacted. "Well um… it's not perfect but I think it'd help you out there."

The man held it under his arm "Well alright then."

There were no words exchanged between the two on the way to the exit, the silence seemed like it would never break in unison with the corridor. The illusion of endless walking was broken by the sight of a prodigious purple door.

Toriel broke the silence "Well, this is where we're going to have to part ways, I'd love to accompany you but I need to stand back and watch for anyone else who may fall down."

Anyone else to fall down… when the man heard those words a nasty realization struck him hard. "Oh shit!"

Toriel was taken back by the sudden outburst, "What's the matter?"

The man shared his troubling thought. "Those people I told you about, the ones that were chasing me- they'll probably eventually find out where I went." The man started to pace in a nervous circle. "They're probably putting two and two together right now! I can bet that they're gonna be coming the same way I did once they figure it out." The man shot his attention to Toriel. "You gotta come with me- you won't be safe back there, these guys are bad news!"

Toriel stood up straight and shook her head. "No… I cannot do that, my place is here, I have vowed to aid anyone who comes here and I cannot break that promise."

The man persisted. "Toriel, you don't know these people, these are _BAD_ people who have done _BAD_ things to other people, myself included, I don't even want to think what they'll do-"

"My place is here and that's final."

The man let out an exasperated sigh and removed his bag to search its contents. "Ok fine but I just have this dreadful feeling that they'll find their way down here and if they do-" The man brought the black pistol back into the light.

"Take it"

Toriel didn't even motion to collect it. "Absolutely not! I couldn't even tolerate the thought of you using this thing much less myself!"

The man ignored the outcry and reloaded the weapon. Toriel continued her opposition, "This isn't right! You promised me that you'd never-"

This time the man interrupted. " _I_ wouldn't hurt any… soul down here, but _you_ need to make a promise to me." The man once again held the pistol out for Toriel to take. "Toriel- listen to me, these people are bad… _really_ bad. you refuse to come with me but I still want you to have some sort of protection from them… please just take it."

Toriel noticed for the first time, the twitching in the human's eyes, she also noticed that he was shaking once again like a frightened animal.

"You know that awful feeling in your stomach when you first saw this gun? I've got the same pit right now when you worry for someone or their well being and I know this feeling all too well because I've experienced it more than a single soul should ever." The man looked down and shook his head and snickered nervously before locking his eyes with Toriel again. "So please just take it, it'll make me feel a whole lot better and it may even save you."

Toriel relieved the man of the weapon, his hand felt cold and clammy. The damned thing felt awful in her grip; it was cold and metallic and it gave her a bleak feeling in her stomach.

The man recollected his bag and stood up again, "You've got fifteen rounds in there, probably won't be enough for all of them but it will certainly hold them at bay for you to leave if they convince you otherwise." The man pointed towards the gun in Toriel's hand. "You pull back the top of it all the way and you let it spring back to load it and when you're ready to fire it, press that little switch on the left side down." The man mimicked the actions for her. "Then you're live, one through the heart, one through the head don't you hesitate."

Toriel lowered the weapon, "I won't need to." The man turned to the large door and slowly pulled it ajar letting the darkness from the passage seep out. "Alright-" He sighed "I'll be going now."

Toriel looked away from the evil in her hand, "Good luck out there."

"Same to you, and Toriel… thank you- for everything."

She blushed slightly.

"I want to apologize for the scare back there, I'm just not used to kindness like that especially as much as yours, I haven't seen any form of it for a long time."

Toriel crossed her arms, "You really have it rough out there huh?"

The man smirked "It's not exactly warm and fuzzy but I get by." The man began to pass through the door frame.

"Wait- One final thing, I promise" The man leaned back through the door. "What's that?"

Toriel asked "I never got your name, it left my mind."

The man snickered, "Oh man, what am I like? Find the nicest soul and give nothing back- not even a name." He cleared his throat. "It may not be worth much but, it's Brainz." Toriel gave him a funny look and he supplemented, "Said just like it's spelled mind the S and put in a Z."

Toriel did so, "Brainz huh? well that's an interesting title to say the least." Brainz chuckled, "You don't know the half of it."

The door closed, sending a metallic reverberation through the corridor and just like that Toriel was alone again. She stood still waiting for the echo to fade away and turned back to her home when silence returned to the space.

Toriel couldn't stop thinking about… well everything; The odd name of the man, the reason behind his persecution, his unstable temper, his precaution for her future, and especially the gun. She looked at the cursed thing lying dormant in her hand, it was black and ugly. She finally noticed the most unusual feature of the weapon when she made out the text engraved into the barrel,"COWARD." It only added to the unknown in her mind, she couldn't think of what she would do with it or why Brainz had to use such things in the first place. Just holding it gave her a sense of guilt as she didn't desire to be associated with anything that could inflict pain on others.

Toriel ascended the stairs back into the cozy light of her home and placed the pistol on the nightstand by her chair and sat down. Her mind was cluttered with troubling thoughts. "Will he be alright out there? Will he keep his promise to me? I know he gave me his weapon but he may have more in his bag, why didn't I ask?" Toriel's palm met with her forehead with an exclamation,

"Doh!"

She spoke out in frustration. "The tattoos! I forgot to ask about the tattoos."


	2. Unreasonable Surroundings

II

Unreasonable Surroundings

"Well, once again that's logic out of the window." Brainz quickly felt the dramatic climate change, the air felt like gaseous ice as he began to shiver violently, the sweater was looking better with every degree of hypothermia. Brainz could easily confirm the faults of the garment now; one sleeve was longer than the other, the collar was indecisive about being a turtleneck or not, and the size wasn't quite fitting for him, but these problems were outweighed by the potential _not_ to freeze to death.

He continued forward into the trees, the landscape was silent with the exception of his footsteps in the frozen ground. After ten minutes of trudging through the wilderness Brainz paused and looked at his surroundings. "Where am I going?" There were trees, any direction he looked, trees fading into obscurity by a veil of white fog. The land was already illogical in it's design so he lacked a method of telling how large it was or where he was supposed to go. Brainz once again considered the possibility that he was in some sort of coma or form of purgatory.

It really would explain everything, the anthropomorphic and sentient goat, the impossible geography, and the lingering feeling of Deja vu. That's what bothered him the most, as alien as this was he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd been here before and that this had occurred in the past. Brainz couldn't help but fester this idea lacking a feasible distraction from the soulless plane of indifferent snowcapped trees.

A wind chill sapped the heat from his body he acknowledged it with a powerful shiver, it was time to move on. Brainz continued his straight trudge through the cold landscape slowly becoming mesmerized by the indifference in the land his trance was periodically broken by the overbearing cold that grew on him. Brainz hunched over and held himself tightly to combat the cold, it seemed that the only difference as he proceeded was the temperature as it felt increasingly hostile.

Brainz began to notice frost accumulating on his parted hair as well as the distinct lack of feeling in his fingertips. Minutes evolved into hours: hours bolstering the deception of days maybe weeks, Brainz long gave up on formulating any sense of time down here, the growing hypothermia held a higher priority. Brainz counted a month in his head when he finally reached a milestone in the frozen eternity: The tree line in front of him began to grow in density and fog. To a _normal_ man under _normal_ circumstances this was the _wrong_ way, but here the break in monotony was a welcome sight

.

Brainz pressed forward into the brush, the shelter from the condensed trees defeated the periodic wind chills giving him something to appreciate, however it didn't last very long. As good as the change in scenery was, it continued to change as he navigated through the increasingly difficult terrain. The saturation of trees became overwhelming with their connected canopies forming a barrier blocking out the unnatural light, the darkness and claustrophobia were supplemented by a growing snowbank.

Brainz in despite of the hazardous path continued on eventually finding himself in complete darkness, the only feeling he has was the snow creeping up to his knees. Brainz was uncertain if he still owned two hands as there was no feeling where they should be and the darkness prevented him from glancing at them to reassure that he still had hands. Brainz's progress had gradually slowed down mutually with the still increasingly hostile tomb of trees and snow, now up to his waist.

Finally, after two years had passed in his mind Brainz halted out of weakness, the cold had claimed his entire body, Brainz deducted that if he could feel anything it would be the immense pain of one million icicles puncturing his flesh. With a quivering breath, Brainz realized he was dying. "K-knew it." Brainz forced his frozen face to defiantly grin as the realization crept in, he _didn't_ survive: no man could possibly fall that high and live. This was all just another nightmare, existing in slow motion influenced by his dying thoughts. He thought to himself as he began to fall asleep, "I'm lying in the morgue right now, cameras eating up the sight of my sorry ass it was always cold in those places."

Brainz closed his eyes and let out a final breath, "So this is what death is like, and I thought I'd never get to it." With this remark Brainz stood motionless as the darkness filled his soul. It was so cold… yet even colder.

Suddenly a brilliant yellow light flared in his vision, Brainz felt a rush of rapid euphoria and frigid air. The icicles found their mark in his flesh only barred by the overwhelming elation. He gasped loudly and opened his eyes as his body convulsed violently with the return of feeling. The air in his lungs erupted in a powerful outburst, " _WHOA!"_ Brainz was standing in an open field devoid of anything except the snow on the ground, the battalion of trees was nowhere in existence. Brainz regained control of his muscles and exercised them in a series of confused glances still panting.

He spoke out loud to no one once again, "What the fuckwas that?!" His voice echoed through the plane. Brainz turned to face the land where he was in the past and was only mentally assaulted further by the sight. His footsteps held their mark in the snow creating a line behind him with an increasingly disturbing lack of trees. Brainz squinted at the land behind him and barely made out a purple dot that he recognized as the door. He was gripped by the sight for a moment but finally responded with a frustrated grunt, "I know I didn't imagine that bullshit! What kinda fucked up place is this?!"

Brainz averted his attention to himself, there was no frost cultivating on the tips of his hair nor was there any signs of frostbite on his fingers. What had happened couldn't have been real and it certainly wasn't a hallucination, they'd stopped a long time ago. Brainz began to shiver again, he was spooked to say the least but it may have just been for the climate again because it was still cold as hell. Trying to push the moment of insanity into obscurity he turned back forward and carried on. This time there was no indifferent void of snow in fact, Brainz found a landmark within ten seconds of walking.

In front of him lay a wooden bridge to connect a gap in the ground partially obstructed by wooden planks serving as makeshift bars. This change in scenery was legitimate unlike the cold fever dream, Brainz accepted it with open arms and tested the tensile strength of the bridge by running across, the wooden bars didn't create much of an obstacle.

When Brainz reached solid ground again he paused again and turned to face the structure, it had to have been made by someone but Brainz wanted to be sure that it was real. The bridge was still there… It stood in front of a menacing façade of trees containing a shroud of darkness beneath their leaves.

"That's it" Brainz kneeled and dropped his backpack onto the ground and hastily opened the smallest pocket with his shaking hands, he was muttering to himself in disbelief, "Uh uhh, uh uhh, uh uhh." He quickly drew a small black box out of the bag and removed the lid still shaking his head.

The box was lined with a soft layer of foam shaped to protect the contents from impact; a tiny silver pistol, one bullet, a smaller red carton, and an even smaller silver box. Brainz let the pistol and ammunition rest in the box but removed the other contents rapidly. The red carton spat out a paper tube into Brainz's grip which he brought to the silver box. The silver box opened its maw and introduced a small flame into the world that met with the tube setting it alight.

Brainz returned the contents to the black box which also returned to his bag and brought the cigarette to his lips inhaling a large breath of the toxins inside. He let out a prolonged and relaxed sigh releasing a small white cloud made of smoke and condensing water. His shaking stopped and Brainz let out his worries with each raspy cough from the smoke. Brainz looked at the cigarette in his hand and chuckled weakly, "Of all the things trying to kill me, these'll do it first." Brainz had always claimed how he hated the god forsaken things but too often he found himself being rescued from the brink of insanity by their toxic breath. He took another long puff and let the smoke out with a long sigh, "Christ… just what have I gotten myself into now?" He looked at the nearly spent cigarette and got to his feet, walking towards the bridge.

One last puff and he held the butt over the chasm to dispose of it but hesitated when a gruff voice crept up behind him, "Those're bad for ya y'know."

Brainz jumped with a yelp sending the butt down the pit and spun around madly to face the voice. It stood mere feet behind the man with one hand in its pocket and one outstretched, it grinned at Brainz menacingly. Brainz glared at the creature partially in a combat stance twitching involuntarily, he gave back no words.

"Don't know how you do your business but here we say hello to newcomers with a handshake."

Brainz remained partially motionless and only displayed fear through his nervous twitching.

"You're a _hands on_ sorta guy huh-" The creature walked towards him. "-Here- I'll show ya."

Brainz finally reacted by jumping back almost tripping on the bridge post, "No!"

The creature stopped advancing and put its hand back in its pocket, it still sported a large grin.

Brainz spoke again with less volume, "No… it's fine-." He relaxed his stance. "-You just… startled me."

The creature shrugged, "Happens sometimes, I scare people _out of their skins_." It winked at Brainz.

He sneered slightly at the pun. "You get that a lot?"

The creature, still grinning, replied. "Yep, never seen anyone jump as much as you though, really jumpy guy aren'tcha."

Brainz spared no familiarities and he went right to the question burning in his mind. "So, are you gonna attack me, because I'm a human?"

It laughed at the question and shook its head slowly. "I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to…" It yawned. "-But I'm not really feeling it today."

Brainz was still worried. "Oh?"

"I watch this neck of the woods for humans and what nots but—" It shrugged again. "-Meh"

Brainz eased back, leaning on the wooden poles, the creature gave Brainz a question.

"Haven't seen your kind down here for a while, whattaya call yourself, jumpy?"

Brainz scoffed. "It's Brainz… mind the s and add a Z… you?"

The creature held out its hand once again. "Sans."

Despite the implied friendliness Brainz was still reluctant to approach, Sans fixed it.

"I wouldn't trust those poles with _my_ life, I know who built them and I'll tell ya that carpentry doesn't belong on his resume."

Before Brainz could retaliate a loud splintering noise erupted behind him as the bars gave away to his weight causing him to stumble towards the blackness below. His progress towards another fall was stopped by a bony arm grabbing his shirt.

"Told ya, wanna finally give me your hand?"

Brainz finally obliged and went for the outstretched arm… a nasty shock ran up his arm causing him to lose his grip. "Gah! Sunova bitch!"

Sans laughed and held up the buzzer previously in his hand, "I'm sorry, I couldn't resist." Brainz grimaced at Sans and took his arm again, this time putting his footing back on solid ground. "Well thanks anyway."

Sans spoke condescendingly, "You're not exactly the friendly type of guy are ya?"

Brainz brushed himself up and remarked defiantly, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Sans was quick to the jump, "You jump two stories in the air at your new pal and it took almost falling to your death to shake his hand." Sans's tone became emotionless.

"Guilty mind?"

Brainz was taken back by the accusation and shuddered before his comeback. "What? No"

Sans's voice became patronizing again, "Sure- whatever you say, jumpy."

Brainz scoffed again, he was genuinely uncomfortable about this "thing" sure it seemed friendly but the way its voice lost all emotion when it accused him was just disturbing.

"So… Sans you say that you're the the watchman around this… place, think you could point me to an-"

"-Exit, yeah I'll take ya-" The haste to answer Brainz's question was just all the more creepy as if he knew that he'd ask.

"Great, lead the way." The two left the bridge and headed into a path cut into the dwelling of trees.

"So-" Sans turned to Brainz. "-What's your story?"

Brainz glanced at him, "Hmm?"

"Cmon now, you know what I mean, how'd you find yourself down here?"

Brainz blew a raspberry in place of an answer, he didn't want to let anything slip this time, any mistake would be less awkward like his exaggerations to Toriel but more dangerous in risk of provoking his new "friend". "Well-" He swallowed. "-I was looking for something and I didn't see a hole in the ground, I knew I should've waited till morning but here I am."

Sans saw right through his lie, "That's nice, so when will you get to the part where you were in trouble?" Sans stopped dead in his tracks simultaneously with Brainz who froze up.

Brainz defensively retorted still staring down the path, "How would you know that?"

Sans still kept his cool neutral tone, "Lucky guess."

Brainz cringed, but spoke in a falsely reassuring tone, "Oh- of course… I can see how you would think something like that, but it's nothing like that, like I said-" Brainz flashed an unconvincing smile at Sans. "-I was just clumsy."

Sans resumed walked and laughed, "Whatever you say, jumpy." There was definitely something awry with this "thing", Brainz felt an aura of dread just being near him, it obviously knew _something_ but Brainz wasn't confident enough to know _what_ it knew or _how_ it knew. Still, they both continued down the path without any further incident until they reached a clearing.

"We're here." Brainz observed the area, ahead of them lay a village of snow covered cabins, full of life walking around. A brightly colored sign greeted them, "Welcome to Snowdin!"

Brainz raised a brow, "The Exit?"

Sans turned to face him again, "Nope."

Brainz spoke out with an irritated voice, "Then why'd you take me here, I thought we were going for the exit…"

No response.

"Sans?" Brainz turned to face Sans but was met with nothing, footprints included. "Well that's just great." Another cigarette.

Brainz reluctantly walked through the village, sulking to avoid any attention, he was certain that the amount of eyes gazing at him grew with his progress but he didn't want to confirm it. He had been a black sheep before but the circumstances here put the experience into unsettling territory. Brainz continued his slow footing only glancing away from the ground to make out where he was trying to go when he felt a nudge at his shirt and almost yelled. He stopped in his tracks again and turned to face the culprit, a small yellow creature staring up at him with eyes full of mystery. "Y-yeah?"

The creature stared right into him and it spoke in a voice as frightened as it was curious, "Are you a-." It stood on its tips to get closer to Brainz's face and whispered. "-Human?"

"Would it be a _bad_ thing if I was?."

His tobacco stained breath made the creature shrink away, it glanced around nervously. "I don't know, I wanted to ask you."

Brainz's skin regained its complexion. "What do you mean?"

The creature spoke with eagerness and a lack of structure leading Brainz to assume it was a child. "Well they tell us that humans are really really _really_ bad and that they do all sorts of bad things to monsters-"

Brainz acknowledged this without emotion, "Uh-huh."

"-But then they say that if one was here that it would be really good and it would make everything better."

Brainz tilted his head slightly to see the various creatures passing by, occasionally giving him a hostile glare. "How does that work out exactly."

The yellow child rolled its eyes. "I dunno, nobody seems to know what that means either, I thought that you would know if you were a human."

Brainz only felt more vulnerable and exposed, he repeated the information. "Humans are bad, but they're good for something down here… is that what you're saying?"

The creature nodded. " _Really_ good."

Brainz also nodded, "Right." Brainz didn't want to open a can of worms without further information about it. "Well... -" He moistened his lips. "-I don't think I have any answers for ya kid."

The child frowned for a moment but regained a bright face. "Oh well… thank you anyways mister!" It bounded off bouncing jubilantly, Brainz noticed just now that it had no arms.

"Euugh" He looked around again, letting his long hair conceal his face from passer byers, a pair of small buildings caught his attention. Brainz slowly trudged out of the snow into one of the buildings, "SHOP" greeted him above the doorway.

"Hiya!" A cheerful voice rang out behind the counter, Brainz greeted it with a less cheerful voice, "Uh, hello."

"Welcome to my shop!... I haven't seen your-" It squinted, trying to look through his hair. "-Uh Face around here." Brainz observed the shopkeeper, normally a sentient rabbit would alarm him in some way, but he was quickly getting numb to the sight.

"Uh, yeah… I'm from-" He took a gamble with his lie. "-Out of town, I'm just visiting a friend."

"Who?"

Brainz couldn't retaliate normally to this intrusion, instead he blurted out the first name that came to his mind. "Sans."

The shopkeeper crossed her arms and persisted curiously. "Really? He's an interesting guy to say the least, a little on the odd side I have to admit."

Brainz played along with the ruse, "Yep, always something with him."

The shopkeeper smiled. "Well that's nice, so what can I do for you stranger?"

Directions obviously… but as Brainz was rearing his lips to ask so, he stopped himself from asking and scolded himself in his thoughts. _You idiot!_ _Why would you ask how to leave if you're visiting someone here?_ Brainz wanted solely to leave but that would cause even more suspicion, he nervously put his hands in his jean pockets and felt something smooth and cylindrical in one. Despite the shopkeeper's patience, Brainz had to break the silence, "Do you have anymore of-" He brought the shotgun casing to the counter. "-These?"

The shopkeeper frowned and examined the casing, "No, I don't think I've ever seen anything like that, what am I looking at exactly?"

Brainz wanted to slap himself, at this point he'd rather deal with the awkwardness of his first question, he reprimanded himself mentally again. _That's even worse!_ Brainz snatched the shotgun shell off the counter and quickly retorted, "Oops, I actually meant to ask, what you had in stock." He laughed nervously and felt the sweat beading up under his hair.

The shopkeeper raised a brow and responded skeptically, "Suuure, well I just finished a batch of cinnamon buns, my own recipe." She brought a tray to the counter.

Brainz's eyes widened at the sight of food, he hadn't realized until now how hungry he actually was, his last meal was a bag of chips before the chase. "Uh sure! Sounds good, I'll take two." The shopkeeper went to bag two of the morsels, "That will be fifty six gold."

Brainz was already holding his wallet in one hand and had placed a dollar on the counter when he froze. "Gold… as in gold coins?"

Still skeptical the shopkeeper reassured him, "Yes, a fair price I may add."

Nothing to say this time.

"Where are you from again?"

Brainz decided to cut his loss and enacted the oldest of escape plans in a nervous mumble. "Uh, Just remembered, I gotta see something, I gotta go." Brainz bounded for the door, another creature had opened it to enter the shop and almost collided with the man as he ran.

"Wait!" The shopkeeper shouted but Brainz had already left earshot. The new customer turned to the closed door and back at the shopkeeper, "What was _that_ all about?"

The shopkeeper shook her head, "I don't know, but he left his…" She stared at George Washington's portrait. "Picture… on the counter."

The customer looked at the dollar and once again glanced at the door. "Who _was_ that anyways?"

The shopkeeper shrugged still looking at the dollar. "I don't know exactly, said he was visiting the skeleton brothers."

The customer scoffed. "Go figure, anyone associated with those two is gonna be weird-" He examined the dollar again. "-Is that a picture of a human?"

Brainz was a lone wolf for the majority of his life he had grown accustomed to periods with little to no social interaction. He'd never consider that his behavior may have been affected by solitude conditioning, and he'd show evidence of this with his long soliloquies with only himself as the audience.

"That's some _fine_ work you did there, jackass." His words were drenched in sarcasm as he sulked through the village, not mindful of whom he was addressing but himself. "Why don't you just blurt out, _Hey lookie here! I'm a human!, I don't know what the hell i'm doin down here, please GET ME!_ " His mumblings were becoming louder and more pronounced, if he kept it up they would eventually become eligible english.

"Better yet, why don't you just own up and say _Hiya I'm Brainz and i'm a fugitive! Number three on the FBI's most fuckin wanted!_."

A familiar voice interrupted his rant. "Hiya Brainz, number three eh? Not bad… do you get medal or something?"

Sans was leaning against a building while Brainz gave him a complementary series of denials. "- Was _not_ referring to myself, I was just telling somebody somethin."

Sans was pretty sure of himself. "Sure, looks like you're winning the argument with yourself… whatever you say, jumpy."

That word was starting to irritate him. "Now now, don't put the attention on _me,_ let's talk about you, _flakey."_

Sans snickered, "Good one"

Brainz still continued angrily, "Don't know about _you_ but when we say _Oh sure I'll take you to where you have to go_ we usually do so without the bailing part." He really wasn't angry about it but he hoped his temper would change the subject away from sickly ironic rant.

Sans was still as smug as ever, "You exited the woods back there, that's a job well done for me."

Brainz reared up to snap at him again but sighed thinking back on it, _anywhere_ was better than that cursed land he endured. Brainz pushed on his cheeks with his tongue in introspect. Technically he wouldn't be standing here or standing at all if Sans didn't help him, he tried to adopt a better attitude. "You're right-" He lightened up. "-You _did_ save me hours of walking… and hypothermia… and probably blunt trauma so… thanks."

Sans pushed himself from the wall, "Don't sweat it pal, I'm gonna take a pit stop- wanna come? You look exhausted."

Now that was an understatement, Brainz didn't know how long he was out from his fall but he could tell that it wasn't enough sleep, the deprivation coupled nicely with his sore muscles. "You got me there, I guess I could use a couple minutes… lead the way-" Brainz smirked. "-For real this time."

Sans started walking and motioned for Brainz to follow, "Cmon, I know just the place." "What's that"

"Grillby's"

It was a small place: the buzzed patrons could spend their time in the gaze of the bar counter. The two entered the tavern cutting off the cold with the door Brainz took in the sight. A mix bag of creatures no two the same, basking with associates or solitude none seemed put any mind into the two walking in. A jukebox lay dormant in one corner of the room any potential tunes being overshadowed by a somber piano melody originating from nowhere.

Brainz had his eyeful, "Is this some kind of… bar or something?"

Sans nudged him. "No, that is." He pointed forward for Brainz to spot the counter.

"Real funny." The two found vacant stools and sat down, Brainz sighed massaging his legs gently.

"Man you must be out of shape."

Brainz begrudgingly turned to the accusation. "I've been walking forever, _any_ man's legs would hate them for this, _you_ don't even know how long i've been out there."

Sans slowly shook his head with his patronizing aura, "Nah, I'd give you five minutes give or take none."

Brainz sneered, "I thought you were the watchman of the forest."

"I am."

"Five minutes my ass, I was stuck in that place for five hours, you wouldn't get here in five minutes with a damned monster truck let alone on foot… you really oughta make a trail or something."

Sans laughed at him. "Nah, I saw you walk out of that door, you went ten steps and took a break to have your little freakout before the bridge."

Brainz tensed up.

"So, not this time… Jumpy."

Of all the things testing his sanity, he'd just have to forget about the walk. He feigned slight embarrassment. "Welp, I guess you got me there, I must've made up that little experience."

Sans shook his head. "Oh no, you didn't."

Brainz shuddered and shook his head. "Do they serve alcohol here?" Before he'd get his answer, he felt a wave of radiating heat from behind the counter, two plates with identical contents of burgers and fries clinked against the counter, the flames nodded to Sans and walked away.

"Thanks Grill." Play on words aside with another physical anomaly, there was food on the table. "Here."

Sans slid a bottle of ketchup that was quickly snatched and assessed before it could leave his hand. The cap gave way and the bottle donated a generous amount of the dressing on the food. Sans smirked, "Whoops, sorry about that here why don't we sw-"

Brainz was already halfway through the red soaked food only pausing his ravenous consumption to wipe the ketchup off on his pants.

Sans raised a nonexisting brow. "Wow…-"

Brainz finished off the burger and turned to face Sans while wiping his mouth off.

"-Either we share a similar liking for ketchup or you were literally starving.

Brainz was still chewing and he just simply held up two fingers.

Sans grabbed the nearly depleted ketchup bottle. "What, skipped lunchtime or something didja?"

Brainz finally spoke. "Sometimes I don't get the opportunity to eat something-" He wiped his mouth again. "- Happens more times than I'd like to say."

The patronizing voice returned. "Right, looking for that _thing_ of yours eats up all your time, I get it." Sans winked and put the bottle to his also non existent lips.

Brainz wanted to show some form of repulsion but he held his tongue realizing that he consumed an equal amount of the stuff. He thought to himself, _If I'm liable for heartburn, now would be the time._

"Alright" Sans stood up from the stool. "Let's head over to my place, it's on the way out anyways."

Brainz shrugged and followed after Sans going for the door. This walk through the village felt much less hostile even with Brainz's hair parted to reveal his battered face. They approached two small buildings at the edge of the village, the most notable feature for Brainz was the mailbox choking on letters, the sight reminded him of looney tunes where the mailbox would receive one more letter and eventually explode.

"This is my dump." By all means it didn't look bad at all.

"It looks nicer than anything I've called my own." Brainz contemplated that retort in his mind. "Shit."

It was unnoticed as Sans opened the door and beckoned for Brainz to enter. The interior looked slightly rural with the only oddity being a large flat screened television facing a sofa. The sight of this put some more logic on the line. _They've even got cable down here?_ Brainz stood motionless while he festered the thoughts. _Certainly a contrast to the rustic theme._ Brainz could've sat there for another minute or two but he was halted by a new voice booming from upstairs.

" _Sans!"_ Rapid, approaching footsteps suggested that the voice was coming to enter to the room. "I know that you're supposed to be on duty still! Why have you left your-" It froze at the sight of the visitor. The pestered creature had a similar appearance to Sans with the exception of a much taller and pronounced physique. The skeleton and Brainz were locked into each other's gazes.

Brainz hoped that this one shared the same carefree attitude with Sans and he meekly spoke. "Hi."

It didn't break the awkwardness as the skeleton stared motionless with widened eyes and an extended jaw.

"Hey bro, just takin a little break." Sans didn't seem to pay any mind to the tension in the room with his carefree demeanor.

The silence was becoming unbearable with the face off growing in duration. "

 _YOU!-"_ It pointed accusingly at Brainz. "- _I_ know what _you_ are!"

Brainz remained motionless with his eyes slightly crossed at the finger merely inches from his face.

Sans still remained patronizing. "What's that exactly?"

The intrusive skelton turned to face Sans, it's digit still pointed at Brainz. " _He_ is what we've been waiting for all these years!." The creature receded its arm and began making giddy noises. "I can't believe this day has finally come!-" It's eyes darted from the man back to Sans. "-and that _you_ actually did it!"

The bewilderment quickly faded into skepticality in the man. "Whoa whoa whoa, pal… what exactly did he do?"

The tall skeleton jerked its head to face him. "Human!, capturing you of course! What else?"

Brainz stepped back from the thing and returned the glare. "I think you've got the wrong message there _buddy-_ " He backed up until he could feel the door behind him. "- _I'm_ just here for some directions so I can leave."

The creature advanced towards him. "Oh no no no! _You're_ going to fix EVERYTHING! And I'll take the credit for it."

Brainz began to shake, his hostility flared up. "STOP… right there!"

The creature abided.

"I don't even have a sliver of what the hell you're going on about, but I know what _I_ want to do and that's to get out of here and go on with my life."

The creature spoke up again, it seemed to ignore what was just said. "Once I turn you in, I'll get all the fame I deserve!" It began taking another stride towards the man with arms outstretched, Sans watched silently without any input.

There was no time for negotiation, the danger was about to reach him a menacing smile, Brainz barreled through the door and made for the path away from the village. The voice of the threat faded behind him.

"Human, Wait!"

Brainz turned his head to see the bone white figure advancing on him against the snow, he turned his head forward and pushed on. He cursed Sans under his breath. "Smug fuck, knew he was crooked, this was all just a bullshit setup!" Brainz really couldn't consider where he was trying to go but "Away" from the threat that was gaining on him.

He reached a turn in the path and broke the skeleton's sight on him for a moment, right as he couldn't see it anymore, something grabbed his ankle bringing him down to the ground. Before he could even scream or react, he was pulled into a large bush. He rolled over rapidly and wound back his leg to give the new attacker a faceful of trauma, the "attacker" flashed its persistent grin at him and put its bony finger over its mouth to motion for Brainz to be quiet. Still terrified, Brainz obliged and covered his mouth to muffle his rapid breaths.

A set of rapid footsteps approached and left the bush quickly, a voice boomed from them, "Come back human!" The footsteps soon faded out of sound leaving only Brainz's rapid heartbeat in his ears.

"Alright pal, you can get up, he's gone." Sans watched as the snow covered man tentatively stood up from the cover and brushed himself off. "I'd say that went pretty well."

Brainz remarked with an expression of pure hatred, he mirrored the statement in a mocking tone and growled at Sans. "Getting attacked by some hostile asshole and running for my life in absolute fear, yeah I'm sure you thought it went _pretty_ good."

Sans shrugged, "I'm just being real here, that's the best reaction he's had to a person, you got off easy."

Brainz turned toward the path that the attacker went and back to Sans, still angry. "And what the hell was _that_ exactly."

"That's my bro, Papyrus, believe me when I tell you that he's completely harmless.

"Uh huh, sure." Brainz parted his hair out of his eyes and shook the snow off. "I'm sure that I wasn't in _any_ danger at all."

Sans ignored the sarcasm and patronized further. "He just gets excited when he finds a human that's all."

Brainz attacked the analogy "You say that like he's a kid who found a coin on the floor for a gumball!" He pointed at Sans and shook his finger. "If you're so sure of yourself tell me this, why are people so important? Why am _I_ so important that you need to screw with my head and that Paper has to chase me while screaming like a goddamned banshee!?"

"Papyrus."

Brainz only became more aggravated and he spun around with his hands on his head, "I couldn't care less what he's called!, what's the deal with him… with me!?" There was no response. "Sans?!" He spun around again to an empty pathway. "Son of a bitch!"


	3. Unconvincing Smile

III

Unconvincing Smile.

"You know what?... I've had it." Brainz dropped his rucksack to the ground. "I've had it with this place."

One by one he opened the compartments bringing the contents to light.

"I've had it with this cold." He began rummaging through his possessions.

"I've had it with these _things_." He reached for the familiar black box, but stopped midway and resumed his search.

"I've had it with this houdini motherfucker." His hand brought out a large cloth conformed in the shape of the item it concealed.

"And I've had it with this cryptic bullshit." Brainz gently unraveled the cloth from the item making sure the cloth separated it from the wet ground. The sight of the item made him nod his head with an aggravated grin on his face.

Brainz caressed the torn stock of the weapon with his left hand, his fingers felt the indentation of the etched word on the side of the stock "LUPARA." Holding it gave him a sense of security and comfort, but yet he could feel a distinct feeling of guilt from looking at the thing, he felt dishonest, dirty even. He heard a somber voice in his head,

"You promised…"

Brainz placed the weapon back on the cloth and shook his head while arguing with himself. "Please… how would she know? Didn't want to come with me." Brainz rolled up the sleeve on his left arm and observed the bandaging, it made him more uncomfortable. "She's gonna die anyways when those assholes come down here."

He pushed his guilt into his stomach and held the shotgun, once again running his hand up the shortened barrels to the jagged openings. Brainz recalled his poor craftsmanship at the sight, when he cut the two barrels off with a hacksaw to help conceal the weapon easier, chronic use wore the tips down further and converted their uneven cuts into jagged bottlenecks. He felt the sharp edges of the barrels, he'd use them as a bayonet often.

"Alright, that's enough." Brainz ended his memory trip and pulled a plastic bag out of his backpack, "HAVE A NICE DAY" was inscribed on the side in permanent marker with smudged letters. The contents rattled inside as he untied the opening, when he found his way inside the bag two shotgun shells were rescued. They found their place inside the shotgun which snapped shut with an ominous *click!*.

He wasn't satisfied yet, reaching further into the rucksack he rummaged for a moment and ceased when he brought out a rubber handle, he squeezed the trigger and the handle stuck out its serrated steel tongue. "Good." He was about finished with his inspections when a small black magazine fell out of the open zipper.

Brainz picked it up and frowned. "Well, _these_ are useless now-" He tossed the ammo back into the bag and closed it up. "-Why did I have to develop a conscience back there?" He stood up groaning. "And that was a really good gun too." He didn't proceed down the path however as he didn't consider the difficulty of holstering the sawed-off without his jacket. "Of course… she dumped my coat because it was dirty… there goes holding an armory in my pockets." With a sigh, Brainz began his trudge through the path, holding the shotgun over his shoulder.

While the path wasn't too difficult to traverse his pace was especially slow and cautious, the shrieking skeleton didn't leave his thoughts as he was forced to follow its footprints. It wasn't long when the trees gave way for an opening in the narrow path. Considering the oddity he faced back by the door, this was comforting. Brainz did feel a small tinge of disappointment when he saw the opening revert back into a narrow tree filled path just ahead, it was quite a small clearing.

The disappointment became confusion when something else caught his attention among a collection of footprints in the snow. It rested on an abandoned plate resting on the snow bed considering everything that it could've been, it was out of place to say the least.

"Spaghetti." Brainz was forced to speak in order to confirm the sight as real, "Spaghetti…" Brainz looked around tentatively trying to spot an ambush in the makings, nothing. He cautiously approached the plate and observed it, looking for a snare rope buried in the snow, nothing. He looked at the snow prints in the ground, they continued out of the clearing and back into the narrow path, whatever set this down wasn't here anymore. Brainz bent down to examine the "trap?" closer, the food was cold and soggy while the sauce began to congeal into red ice. "Gross."

Just as he sought to leave the waste behind, Brainz took a hard blow from behind, sending him tumbling into a bush leaving his breath and shotgun behind. Brainz recovered from his daze just in time to see the blue creature careening towards him to land another strike, with a frantic roll he avoided the creature and led it to trip on the same bush. Brainz quickly jumped to his feet and quickly gave himself some distance from the recovering creature, enough to get a solid look at it. Whatever it was, it was concealed by a large ornate mask brought to life by a pair of radiant eyes.

Brainz spaced his arms and locked himself into a defensive stance ready to avert another attack, the creature merely stared at him. The two locked eyes at each other waiting for the other one to make a move, a modest stalemate.

"You're not giving me the _cold_ shoulder are you?" The creature spoke in a childish banter that was out of place not to mention poorly considered.

Brainz only grimaced from confusion and replied loudly, "What?!"

The creature dashed towards him once more going for another blow.

Brainz instantly side-stepped to the left, dodging the attack and becoming arm's reach with his discarded weapon, he spun around furiously and disengaged the safety. The mask was now faced with the wrong side of a vengeful gaze and a twelve gauge shotgun, it froze.

Considering how the awful pun was spoken in english, Brainz made one last effort to be merciful, "One more go at me, and I'll blow your head off!-" He straightened his stance. "-Back off!"

The creature showed no fear in its response and laughed, "Guess I'm gonna get _iced_ now!"

The response was so out of place and lame that Brainz couldn't find any rational way to retaliate to it, his mind was empty but his mouth began to shake. He removed one hand from the weapon and placed it over his mouth to stifle the laugh, "My god-." He paused to wheeze another chuckle. "-You can't be serious with that." He lowered the weapon and continued snickering at the awful pun, when he locked his eyes with the creature he failed to keep a straight face and instinctively grinned at it.

His smile was met with another one the creature nodded it's head and began to retreat into the bushes, "Thank You, that is all."

It faded into obscurity, the smile left Brainz's 'face. "What kinda bullshit was that?!" Brainz expected a patronizing answer from behind him and spun around to confront Sans, he was ultimately disappointed.

Back on the path again, even more cautiously this time. Brainz held the gun close as he proceeded occasionally pointing it in any direction where he'd hear something or at least think so, the circumstances were more than enough to feed his paranoia. A few minutes of cautious trekking and the path opened up once again this time it was a true sight for sore eyes. A large cavernous space greeted the man with the tree saturation dropping to nothing. Brainz sighed with relief and carried on he gazed at the running water off of the path and smirked.

"This might actually go somewhere, I may be able to finally leave." With that note, Brainz began to proceed with more confidence, his mood only lightened when he noticed the climate becoming less arctic like and more friendly. The air felt increasingly warmer and was accompanied by a receding snow sheet eventually giving way for grassy soil. The presence of actual hope dropped the screaming skeleton from his mind as he continued haphazardly noting the terrain changing in front of him.

The only anomalous feature of this new land was the occasional block of ice that passed down the water, their perfect sculpted figure suggested that they were being artificially made and dispensed, why however, eluded Brainz. Eventually cavernous space shrank into another claustrophobic linear path swapping an army of snow covered trees for soulless walls of rock. Brainz wasn't too keen on the idea of another darkened nightmare, but the thought of going back and running into another psycho in the forest made the darkened path the better option. This time however… before entering the space, Brainz reached for his zippo and held it out with his brandished weapon flame sustained.

As he entered the space he thought outloud, "Might as well see where I'm actually going, I probably should've done that in the first place." The light from behind gradually stopped supplementing the orange glow from the lighter. "Come to think of it, I probably shouldn't have buddied up to a spook, given my only beretta to a goat lady, or entered the spook's house."

Brainz continued begrudgingly through the blackened corridor. " _Come_ to think of it, I probably should have never come to this God damned place." Like the majority of his life he had only himself as an audience, he continued on growing more depressed with each sentence. "Come to think of it, I should've come to my senses and stopped way before I did-" He felt the bruises under the sweater, the least a bullet could do when impeded by kevlar.

"Would've been fine if I didn't go there in the first place." His soliloquy was abruptly ended by the sound of rushing water ahead paired with a dim light from the opening. The lighter returned to his pocket and he proceeded shotgun first.

The room itself was small in every factor the walls were closely facing each other under a small ceiling, a small stream of water took a fourth of the walking room. There were no visible sources of light in the room and yet it glowed with a feigned twilight presence, Brainz looked up at the ceiling to see stars basking the room with their glow.

"Well that's impossible… looks like I'm going the right way."

The other contents of the room were revealed by the light, a tall, ornate, blue, flower and a small wooden structure that looked like a tollbooth of some sorts. The sight of it washed the relief off of Brainz as he remembered the skeleton that must have taken this path, there were no other ways to go as far as Brainz could see. When Brainz was sure that the booth was empty he went to examine it. It was empty mind the half dozen emptied bottles of various brands of ketchup, seemed normal enough.

Out of the room he went, the large backpack scraped against the delicate petals of the flower, it retaliated with a faint voice that froze Brainz in his spot. The voice sounded tired and defeated, stinging with a looming depression.

"-I'm not capable of seeing the difference anymore, what is real or what is not, truth or madness, it's as if nothing exists or even if _I_ exist, the walls that move, the floors that change, it's like I'm trapped in my own world… alone."

The voice faded out of earshot leaving Brainz with his thoughts, confused and disturbed of course. While the words were uneasy enough, it was the voice that stuck out the most, there was an overwhelming sense of familiarity in it but he just couldn't put his finger on it.

"Hello?, are you… alive?" Brainz addressed the plant in a soft tone, he reluctantly stroked one of the petals for a reaction.

"Hello?, are you… alive?"

His words were recycled and presented to him, he tried speaking to it again, "Like some sorta tape recorder are ya." He moved the petals gently again, his words were mimicked with perfect accuracy. "Huh." Brainz stood up and shrugged, picking up his things and finally leaving the small room, he didn't want to put much mind into the concept but he just couldn't forget about what the flower said when he approached it. Someone had to have said it before he arrived, but whom? It hadn't sounded like anyone he had heard before and yet it was so very familiar as if he'd heard it countless times in the past. It was just something else to worry about later, he pushed on.

The next room wasn't too impressive, a waterfall separating the path by earth but still connected by wooden walkways, still illuminated by the faux stars. Other than almost slipping into a watery death there wasn't much to this room, except the lingering feeling of being watched but even that was becoming monotonous. The terrain was becoming noticeably more mountain like, with steep walls forming near the falling sources of water, it was ironic considering all of this was inside of a mountain, chalk one up for inception.

Patches of grass became more frequent in the path as he continued, they grew up to his waist concealing anything below. Brainz festered on the idea that there could have been bear traps in these spots but he never found one. What he did find however caused him to lay down in the grass, completely hiding himself from sight, a pair of voices began to grow in proximity on the grounds above.

"-oh yes! It's true, Sans found it himself! I never would have believed it."

Brainz recognized the first voice as the pale psychopath that he was trailing behind, the second one was slightly muffled and Brainz only heard fragments of it's speech.

"-Lost…. Know where it is?... the human." This voice sounded deep and angry yet slightly effeminate.

Papyrus spoke loudly, easy to comprehend from below, "I was about to bring it to you, but I think I scared it and it ran away."

Brainz grimaced and thought grimly, _We'll see who's scared when I feed you both barrels… asshole._

The other voice muttered again, slightly in and out of comprehension. "... Find it and…. I'll do it myself…. Check Snowdin and I'll be…"

Papyrus was clearly audible once more, "Okay, but even if you find it, be sure to give me credit too, I found it first!"

While the other voice was speaking, Brainz gradually peaked his head just slightly above the grass while holding his breath as to not disturb the blades, he made out the tall white figure standing in fair light. The other figure was shrouded in darkness but its shape was just visible, it was considerably larger than Papyrus and it appeared to be encased in a full suit of plated armor, it looked intimidating as hell.

Brainz couldn't help but whisper meekly out of fear, "Oh God." He quickly covered his mouth and buried his head in the grass again. He couldn't tell if they had noticed his little cry but he furiously hoped in his mind that they didn't.

"Please don't notice, please don't notice, please don't notice."

The conversation seemed to carry on unaware of his presence, eventually he couldn't hear voices anymore. This wasn't enough for him, he stayed pressed against the soil for a long while, controlling his breath and trying to hear anything besides his raging heart. He never heard any set of footsteps from his time hiding in the grass, he wasn't sure whether to assume they were gone, or if they never left and were just waiting for him to drop his guard to strike him.

The conflict in scenarios was pure hell, all Brainz could do was helplessly, compulsively consider the circumstances all while never moving a cell. He had lay there for a long time in a bath of pure paranoia, he was still unaware of the concept of time and couldn't even fathom the time that had passed. Brainz needed to make a decision on what he'd do next, waiting further wasn't wise, he decreed that he would make his move right after he closed his eyes for just a moment, his lids weighed a ton.

"Unit Two Thirty-Seven calling in with a status report… are you able to receive?" The black box crackled as it spoke.

"Go ahead."

The box chimed in, "It is now approximately eighteen hours since the suspect's disappearance, the area is now confirmed blockaded with all entrances under surveillance, all residents have been relocated."

Mordegrid clutched the receiver and held down the small button, "Very good Two Thirty-Seven, maintain surveillance and keep any civilians outside of the perimeter, report in any further breakthroughs or events." Mordegrid returned the microphone to its bed and leaned back in the lush office chair, despite his efforts to clean the desktop from his spilled coffee, a defiant brown ring persisted on the white surface. Large unruly collections of various folders and papers concealed the stain from eyesight while dossiers towered precariously on top.

A soft set of knocks reverberated throughout the room breaking the silence,

"Come in."

A slender man sporting a black suit walked in, red tie loosened down his shoulders. "Jesus Mordegrid, are you going to be content with rifling through mountains of papers all day too?"

Mordegrid didn't acknowledge the man in the door and panned though another tan folder, "That's the idea." The man scoffed and persisted, "You've been neck deep in the stuff since four in morning, you've gotta sleep eventually."

Mordegrid continued to paw through the folder.

"Aren't you the least bit tired? You've been in this office for almost thirty hours straight-"

Mordegrid held up one finger to shush the officer, he pointed it to a pile of spent energy shots and styrofoam coffee cups.

The man shook his head, "Jesus man- you're gonna drive yourself into the ground from the inside out if you keep this up, I know this is a major thing but-" The man bent over to pick up one of the photos, still on the ground from the downed bulletin board. "-The force is doing all they can right now, and you've certainly done way more than you could've." The criminal in the photo stared straight through the officer causing him to shudder and release the photo to the ground.

Mordegrid didn't respond at all and continued rifling through the papers. A hand gently pushed the folder down from his sight and onto the desk.

"Lunezo… please, burning yourself out like this won't help us catch him any faster and you know that, why don't you get _some_ rest instead of rotting in this office."

Mordegrid grunted and fumbled the folder out of the man's hand placing it face down angrily, "I _can't_ okay?... I just _can't_ … I just need to find _one_ file pertaining to this damned place, I just _know_ that something's here about it."

The officer rolled his eyes, "What, the Mount Ebert thing?"

Mordegrid exaggerated the word, " _Ebott,_ E-B-O-T-T."

A bland apology, "Sor-ree."

Mordegrid continued his rant, "There's something just tucked away from us, from ME, I just know so."

The officer's patience was degrading, "I don't know why you're so hung up about this, you look up the place and it comes up empty, there probably hasn't been any cases there I mean… on a map this place is in the middle of scenic nowhere."

Mordegrid glared at him, but held his silence as he continued.

"I mean really, we have no recorded incidents, cases, situations, notes, nothing… zeppo, so I'd imagine that if you look this place up in the database that exclusively records that information you'd come up with nothing more than a footnote."

Mordegrid grinded his teeth together and spoke with clear irritation, "You'd be so sure of yourself if that was the case-" Mordegrid rapidly punched the letters on the keyboard. "-But where's your logic when I search it up and I get THIS?" Mordegrid spun the monitor around for the man to see, the dialogue box strobed on the screen. "Anomalous Cases, Access Denied." Mordegrid reassured the man, "That's right, that's the 'footnote' that I'm greeted with, Me… the 'Captain' of the entire force related to this guy?"

The officer sighed loudly losing interest, "Yeah we all know, you call the shots here for anything related to Brainz, I get it, but that doesn't mean that you get all clearance for everything unrelated to him."

Mordegrid spun the monitor around again and sat down furrowing his brow. "From last night on, this IS related to him and therefore related to ME… now if you'd please… I have a lot of papers to sort."

"Are you dead mister?"

Brainz's eyes shot open to see a pair of wider eyes staring at him on the ground. " _GAH!"_ Brainz jumped up, startled out of his senses out of the grass only to groggily fall over. He sat up from the ground and held his heart to keep it from exploding out of his chest slowing his breathing. A familiar yellow figure rustled out of the bush, Brainz recognized it as the armless child. "Oh jeez-" Brainz rubbed his eyes and placed a hand on his aching head. "-You scared me out of my gourd."

The child looked down sheepishly. "Sorry."

Brainz stood up and slowly steadied his wobbling legs, "I was sitting in there for so long, I guess I dozed off for a bit."

The child looked back at him. "I guess so, what were you doing in there anyways? Were you hiding from her too?"

Brainz straightened himself and cracked his joints, "Who?"

The child squinted at Brainz. "Who? Undyne of course! She was just here and I just missed her!"

Brainz was still too groggy to think straight. "Who's 'Undyne?"

The child gasped and gave Brainz a look as if he committed a murder in front of it. "What? She's only like the leader of the _Royal Guard_ and like the _toughest_ person down here! She keeps everyone safe by beating up all the bad people!"

A spark finally lit up in Brainz's head, he pictured the armored giant glaring at him from a large corridor and groaned. "Oh _that_ Undyne…."

The child lit up again, "Oh wait! I know you! You're that guy I saw in the town, when I thought you were a-"

"Yep!, But like I said, I'm not, I'm just out of town." Brainz didn't want that word to go around, obviously there was something significant about it.

"Did you see where she went when she came here anyways?"

Brainz remembered the voice telling Papyrus to search the snow forest for him, he assume that the iron hulk went towards the new land, and "freedom". "Um- yeah, she went that way." Brainz pointed down the path, the child jumped up and started running.

"Cmon then! Maybe we can catch what she's doing!" The child disappeared, leaving Brainz alone with his thoughts yet again.

"She'll be tearing me a new one from the sounds of it…" Brainz sighed and gathered his things, shotgun in hand and followed after the child, he didn't even consider the possibility of somewhere else to go, he'd rather deal with the skeleton, but going backwards was taboo.

The terrain was forming into a marsh from the fragmented pieces of land separated by small bodies of water, Brainz was reluctant to complain about it out of fear for another snow nightmare, he just couldn't forget about it. Being cautious for any signs of Undyne, he carried on through the wetland, occasionally glancing at the "Stars" on the cavernous ceiling. Eventually he reached an oddly formed gap between two pieces of land, separated by water the one side had a blue lettered sign and a bell mounted in the wall.

"If an error is made, the bell blossom can call bridge seeds back to where they started." "The hell's that supposed to mean?" Brainz shrugged it off and approached the gap. It wasn't too daunting Brainz tossed his bag across the water and soon followed with a leap. More cavernous hallways awaited him, the mimic blue flowers reappeared in some of the pathways Brainz could hear their stories as he passed them, once again it was the familiar voice.

"-Where am I going? Am I just wandering around or do I have a purpose? Frankly I can't tell."

"I have never been so lost but yet, I could swear that i've been here before, that this is all some sort of bad dream on repeat."

"The things I see, the sounds I hear, is this reality or fantasy? I can't tell anymore."

Brainz rolled his eyes as he left the flowers behind, "Man, It's like reading my thoughts out loud, good to see someone else had to deal with this bullshit- I wonder how many people fall down here on a regular basis…"

Brainz stopped speaking to himself at the bump of a wall, "What?" The path seemed to take a left turn and then abruptly stop into a wall. Brainz looked around for another doorway, exit, ladder, anything to escape this place but found nothing but the river running along the ground. "Well this can't be right! Where could that kid have gone?" Brainz looked at the running water on the ground, it couldn't have swam… could it? It had no arms or fins…. Gills even.

Brainz looked back on the path and sighed, "I must've been going the wrong way, does that mean I've got to walk all the way back?" Brainz let out an exasperated sigh and looked back at the dead end… then he perked up, "Unless-" Brainz approached the wall again and began tapping it with the stock of his shotgun, the noise was hollow. Brainz let out another sigh, it was a mixture of relief and irritation.

"Well that figures!" Brainz backed away from the wall and pointed the shotgun at it, he braced himself and pulled one of the triggers. The blast pushed him back almost to the ground, the sound reverberated throughout the cavern leaving a slight ringing noise in his ears. Brainz recovered from the slight daze and approached the wall, still holding together but barely with various forms of light shining through the numerous bullet holes, a couple of swings with the butt of the gun would finish the wall off.

Brainz wanted to begin trying to rationalize how, or why the child or whoever walled up the only path out of there and so fast even, but like _countless_ aspects of this world he didn't expect an answer out of it. More blue lettered signs signs lit the path which gave way for another body of water separating it from the way out, reading them wasn't his best interest.

Brainz could barely see the other side of the body so jumping it was out of the question, swimming wasn't an option either he wouldn't be able to keep himself afloat with all of his equipment.

Choice C it was, Brainz spotted a tiny wooden raft made out of dock planks, "Oh yeah, this is a great idea!-"

He slapped himself in the face. "-Don't know what could possibly go wrong!-"

He slapped himself again. "-Clearly this is the _right_ way!-"

He went to slap himself again but withheld. "-This… is starting to sting,"

Brainz cautiously placed one foot on the raft and gradually increased the pressure on it until he supplied his entire body weight on it, considering the size of it this was a physical anomaly. The raft easily sustained itself with Brainz and his rucksack resting on top of it even without tipping, Brainz didn't question it as he paddled with his hands towards the other side. The water felt like liquid ice, but having only to submerge his hands in it was a blessing compared to having to swim the channel. Brainz eventually departed the magical raft and continued down the docks, he wasn't too mindful of his surroundings until a bright blue flash almost impaled him through his eye.

" _What the hell!?"_ A blue spear bore into the wooden planks in front of Brainz, he stared at it in awe for a moment but lost his focus when another spear almost took his head off. Brainz gawked at the origin of the spears, it stood on the elevated ground parallel to the docks staring hatefully at Brainz.

Brainz tried to feign some level of composure, "Oh hello there… you must be-" He swallowed. "-Undyne."

The armored assailant stood motionless, Brainz tried once more to make peace with it. "So… I was just talking to uh… Papyrus and he was just saying how we have a lot in common." Brainz flashed his trademark grin, complementary to all of his lies.

Undyne didn't buy it, she clutched three spears and reared her arm to throw them. Brainz geared up to run, "We're not gonna be pals are we?" A barrage of blue spears answered for him.

Brainz had grown accustomed to running throughout his life, by all means he wasn't a healthy man, the cigarettes made sure of that. Contrary to his physique and physical health though he could run and he could run _fast_ even when carrying heavy loads on his back. By all means, he was used to running for his life with certain death behind him, the spears may of well have been snarling police canines ready to tear his limbs off.

"Shit shit shit shit shit!" Swearing under his rapid breaths was also common. Running on a slippery dock with a heavy bag on his shoulders being chased by an endless supply of spears from an armored, pissed, she beast would be enough for some men, but Brainz considered that the world felt that his life wasn't difficult enough as the dock began to conform into non-linear jagged paths.

"Oh Cmon! Give me a goddamned break!" Brainz began jumping over the gaps from the dock's odd formation, his bag taking some of his balance with every leap, on the last jump Brainz tripped and fell flat on his face. He rolled over, "Oh man, I'm screwed!-"

Brainz saw the menacing figure prepare a killing spear and held up his arm in fear. "-Wait…" Brainz looked at the shotgun in his hand, "Of course!"

Undyne arched her arm to launch the spear while Brainz quickly steadied the weapon.

He pulled the second trigger. The thunderous blast startled Undyne enough for her to throw the spear off course while the pellets themselves flattened against her breastplate sounding off like a bell, the lead knocked her off her stance and sent her backwards to the ground.

Brainz had ample time to scramble into another patch of tall grass growing right off of the docks, by the time Undyne got to her feet, he was out of sight and ultimately would be out of her jurisdiction. Another moment of terror lying face down in the grass to conceal his panicked breathing, the metallic footsteps approached the grass and abruptly stopped.

Brainz was a sitting duck, both barrels had been fired already, his shotgun was a paperweight in this condition, he braced for the worst and waited in silent fear. To his blessing, the footsteps started again, walking away and eventually becoming inaudible, he counted to one thousand before he poked his head out of the grass to survey the scene. Dark and soulless with no signs of life, back to normal. Brainz crawled out of the grass and sat down on the ground shaking, "Did she really think I left?, Or does she know already and is just screwing with me like cat toying with a vole before ripping their throats out?"

Brainz looked at the path ahead, "I'm sure she knows this place like the back of her hand while I'd be better off drawing a map on mine." Brainz sighed and looked at his black bag. "I need another cigarette."

While he was setting up another dose of the poison a familiar voice bounded towards him,

"Oh _there_ you are again." The yellow child approached him from the darkened path, "What happened? I thought you were behind me the whole time!"

Even though he had just narrowly avoided potential death, Brainz put up a facade that nothing was wrong for the kid, he shrugged and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I haven't been down here before, I got a little lost." Brainz hastily snuffed the small flame and buried the butt in the ground, "In fact-" He looked to the left, pondering a lie. "-I thought you were sitting in this grass here, it's so tall that you'd fool me hiding in it." The lie seemed to work, delivered with a fraudulent grin.

The child nodded. "Yeah, I can get lost sometimes too, it's ok… I came back here because I heard a huge boom coming this way, did you catch what it was?"

Brainz held the shotgun behind his back, concealing it from the child, "A loud explosion?... Here?... I didn't hear anything like that."

The child raised a brow. "Are you sure? It must have been really loud because I heard it echo all the way from the waterfall!"

Brainz tried to confirm his lie again, "I don't know what to tell ya, didn't hear the slightest of something like that." He finished his lie with a shrug.

"Well… that's okay, I didn't find Undyne yet by the way, so you didn't miss anything."

 _You don't know how right you are._ "Oh that's good she's probably still up ahead then- lead the way, I'll try to keep up this time."

The child's face lit up, "Okay! Let's go!" The small creature skipped down the path this time turning back to assure that Brainz was following. Brainz clutched the gun behind his back and gently rubbed his sore knees before he was back on the path. "Yeah yeah, I'm coming,"

The two proceeded at a casual pace, Brainz ensured full eyesight on the yellow child as they passed multiple branches and turns in the path... getting lost here would be a death sentence. One particular oddity that Brainz noticed on the path was another blue recorder flower next to what appeared to be a petrified wedge of cheese on display. Brainz didn't break pace to hear what the flower had stored but nonchalantly dropped the question. "So, what's the deal with those blue flowers?"

They continued walking, "What do you mean?"

Brainz kept it simple, "You know, you talk to them and they tell you right back."

There was some clarification in the kid, "Oooooh, You mean Echo Flowers-" "Yeah that's what I meant." "-Those things just started growing out of nowhere, they're pretty cool though sometimes I like to listen to what other people have said I know it's snoopy but I can't help it."

Brainz rolled his eyes _That wasn't any help_ "Okay, thanks."

The child beckoned a turn in the path onto a marshy ground, the water was a homogenous blue tint, looked like liquid sapphires. "So, you're really unfamiliar down here huh?-"

Brainz tensed, _uhoh._

"-Where _did_ you say you were from again?" Brainz fumbled for words. "Err… pretty far out of town, I mean _out_ there." He complimented the lie pointing towards nowhere.

The child was slightly perturbed, "Well I know that, but like… where? I mean the underground isn't that big of a place… are you talking about by the castle?"

 _Castle?_ Brainz felt moisture building on the stock of his shotgun from his sweating palm, he had one word. "Yes."

Any suspicion anticipated was cleared from the air, "That's _so_ cool! Do you like, get to see the king whenever you want then?"

 _King?_ "Oh for sure-" Brainz felt the hole from his lies being dug under his feet. "-Sometimes I drop by and say hello and stuff like that." Not even the child would be able to be less convinced than Brainz himself. _You idiot! That's not how a king works! They're exclusive not your next door neighbor you jackass!_

Surprisingly there was no opposition to the phrase. "Awesome, you are sooo lucky, I wish I could see Mister Dreemur whenever _I_ wanted."

Brainz was too relieved that that farce had actually worked to question the logic behind why that farce had actually worked, they carried on through the marsh.

They proceeded with no further conversations between them, out of the marsh and through a lone path in the middle of a large pool of water. While they were leaving the chamber Brainz heard the water rippling from behind, seeing a large shape in the water was enough for his quick glance, he left quickly.

"Ok, we're almost there, keep your eyes open for her."

Brainz caressed the trigger on the shotgun, "Gotcha,..." More illuminated corridors and rooms, it was looking all the same mind for a horned statue sitting in the middle of the room, water endlessly leaked from the ceiling above drenching the thing.

"Huh."

The child turned it's head. "What's up?"

Brainz averted his gaze from the statue. "Nothing." While it really was nothing, looking at the stone figure instilled feelings of desolation in him, there was just that recurring feeling of familiarity. As they proceeded, the leaks in the ceiling began to disperse, it felt like walking through a sprinkler. Brainz tried to keep the gun away from the moisture, if it jammed from the water he would be screwed a couple of notches further. Brainz shook the droplets off of his sleeves, "Man, of all the days to forget my umbrella."

The child stopped and pointed, "It's all good… look!"

It was almost on cue, Brainz expected to see something similar but yet actually seeing it stumped him. "PLEASE TAKE ONE." The sign implored him to do so, Brainz decided to accept it and relieved the bucket of one of it's umbrellas. Brainz went to grab another umbrella from the bucket for the child but retracted his arm realizing that it had no appendages to hold it with.

"Err… this oughta be big enough for both of us." The monotonous applause from the raindrops emitted a calming tone giving Brainz some refuge from his persistent anxiety. It was a brief moment of tranquility when the child giggled with excitement,

"Oh man, this is gonna be great, maybe we'll get to see Undyne beat someone up."

Brainz returned to his normal state of fear, "Oh?" The child continued, "Yeah, I think something's going on or something cuz I heard some people talking about this really really _really_ weird guy who just came in and left."

Brainz could hear his heart over the rain, his facade was a direct contradiction to how he felt. "Oh, really?"

The child turn to him jumping with glee. "Yeah!, they were saying that it may have been a human of all things! Can you believe it?"

Brainz was having an increasingly difficult time keeping his composure, his voice periodically quivered. "No way-" He swallowed hard. "-What…. Um… what do you think will happen if it's a human?"

The child laughed innocently, to an actual human this response felt like anything but. "They probably told Undyne already, and she's gonna find the human and then she's gonna-" The child went into a terrifying and descriptive prediction leaving no room for imagination but instead a mental picture.

Brainz began to twitch, he could see the metal gauntlet holding him up by his throat, face turning red life slowly exhaling from his pained mouth, he felt his teeth grinding against each other.

"Hey."

The horrible visuals left his mind, he looked down to the child, a smile long gone from its realized that he had stopped.

"Dude, are you feeling Ok? You just like… froze for second."

Brainz tried to control the trembling, his voice was stifled and scared. "Oh yeah-" He sighed with a loud quivering breath. "-I'm good… I'm good." He looked ahead with a soulless expression. "I- am- good…"

The child wasn't persuaded this time. "Are you really sure this time… like what's with your face?"

Brainz broke his gaze and returned his vision to the child. "What's wrong with my face?"

The child squinted. "It's all white and stuff like it was in Snowden, but I thought it was because it's cold, also you got something on your nose."

Brainz squinted one eye and felt his upper lip with his hand, he felt the slime, partially sticking to his hairs. The blood ran down his finger he smeared it away with his thumb. "I face planted pretty hard back at the docks, guess I didn't notice that I got a bit of a nosebleed-" Brainz smiled at the child and wiped his lip with his sleeve sniffing. "-no biggie."

The child was only mystified further. "Nose-bleed? What's that?,,, I fall on my face like _all_ the time and I never had red stuff come out of _my_ nose." The kid sounded disappointed like bleeding was a good thing.

Brainz raised a brow and tried to wipe any residual blood off of his face. "You're kidding right? Haven't you ever had an accident, or hurt yourself doing something, like a papercut?"

"All the time, but I never had that stuff come out of me, what is it, does it hurt?" Brainz bit his lips and smiled. _You've GOT to be fucking kidding me._ Brainz glanced around in desperation looking for something to take the attention off of his bodily functions. "Say… what's that?" Brainz knew what it was when he pointed towards the large structure in the distance.

The child glanced at it and returned with a skeptical gaze, it spoke with sarcasm. "The castle?... what's the castle?" It stood proudly under the unnatural stars, isolated from the two by a massive lake of pitch black water.

Brainz laughed at himself. "Oh wow… silly me-" He lightly slapped himself in the cheek. "-It looked liked something else for me, I'm going blind as a bat, I see a pair of glasses in my future." Brainz shrugged with a smile on his face, sweat beaded up on his forehead. _Please buy it…._ In the awkward moment without sound, Brainz realized that the rain had stopped. "Oh look at that, it stopped raining!"

The child disregarded the previous conversation and sped down the path. "Cool, we're about there anyways… come with me!" Brainz watched the kid vanish into the darkness ahead and then gazed at the grand structure.

"Hmm, that's gotta be a sign of some form of government down here-" Brainz began to follow after the child, mumbling to himself. "-Guess that's where I'm going for some information-" He sighed. "-Granted they don't lynch me."

Brainz met back with the child standing in front of a tall ledge blocking the path. "What's all this?"

The child motioned towards another bucket on the ground, similarly stocked with umbrellas. "Man, it's too tall for us to climb over."

Brainz returned the umbrella and examined the cliff.

The child jumped. "Oh wait! I have an idea."

Brainz massaged his lip pondering, "What."

The child stood, flush against the wall and looked up. "Climb on me, I'll boost you up."

Brainz slowly shook his head, "Uhh… I appreciate the offer but-"

The child's face turned into a frown.

Brainz paused, prolonging his umms and ahs. _I really don't want to pop this kid's bubble by saying how I'd probably break his_ _neck._ "But…. but-" Brainz examined the ledge again, it wasn't too daunting, standing only inches above his height. "-But… that won't be necessary."

The child held it's frown and watched silently. Brainz approached the ledge and unfastened his bag, he began to swing it in a pendular motion. With a grunt Brainz threw the bag on to the elevation and carefully placed his shotgun next. The soft ground was easy to scale using his upper body as an anchor to swing the rest of himself up.

"Whoa, how did you do that?" Brainz brushed the dirt off and re equipped his things, "Just a little core strength, that's all."

"Awesome, I'm going to find another way around, see ya!" The child began to race away from the cliff.

Brainz held out his arm. "Wait! I can just reach down and pull… you…. up…..and he's gone." Brainz was alone once more, "Shit." Normally the solitude was something he sought after often, but under these circumstances Brainz felt exposed by himself. That child would have served as a good buffer if he'd run into the iron casted soldier again, in desperation it could've been a hostage.

Brainz begrudgingly continued down the path thinking to himself, _If I took that thing as a hostage I'm sure even-_ He made air quotes - _Undyne would open up to 'negotiation'._ More blue lettered signs faced him, contrary to the others that he had passed for insignificance he viewed what they had to say, narrating to himself.

"The humans, afraid of our power, declared war on us. They attacked suddenly without mercy. In the end it could hardly be called a war. United, the humans to powerful and us monster too weak. Not a single soul was taken and countless monsters were turned to dust."

Brainz was taken back by the text, it looked like a passage out of a corrupted textbook, "There was actually something to what Toriel said then?" Brainz began to scratch his head. "Can't be… if this was such a major thing that it's plastered on every wall, why have I never seen it before topside?"

It didn't make sense, Brainz couldn't recall anything pertaining to this place, not in history books, conspiracies, or even commonly misinterpreted ancient dialogues and texts, it couldn't be real could it? His confusion was interrupted by a noise that faintly diffused into the air, the melody of metallic tones familiar to the song of a music box. It seemed to come from the path behind. The song was slow and soothing like the tune of a lullaby so gentle it gave Brainz a sense of sorrow in his being, bad memories began to creep out of obscurity.

It happened again, the feeling of deja vu had clouded his mind again stronger than ever leaving him with a migraine as a side effect. Brainz began to rush away from the music delving further into the unknown ahead. When the noise finally left his ears he stopped to survey the area, Brainz found himself standing on one of a pair of wooden bridges, over and under suspended over a void of absolute darkness. " _Now_ what am I dealing with?" The wooden pathways seemed to span infinitely like an artificial purgatory.

*CRACK!*

The noise caused his heart to skip a beat, a blue spearhead burst through the planks in front of him. Brainz twisted his face into a look of hostility and fear and leaned ever so slowly to peak at the bridge below him. He didn't need to see her standing there because another spear emerged between his feet only inches away from impaling his groin.

"Fuck me…"

Brainz sprinted down the bridge in a panic turning his head to see the barrage of spears drilling through the path behind him, this pathway was a spitting image of the unruly docks with the only difference being the sheer size acting like a maze. There was no direction, no lead, or goal, only running, Brainz's frantic footsteps were joined by the procession of rapid wood splintering sounding like automatic gunfire.

Even as the path conformed into a nonsensical design, Brainz traversed the labyrinth like an enraged bull, the jagged projectiles never came any closer to striking him from below as both him and Undyne were at the same pace. It was an even race, Brainz was held back by his large backpack while Undyne struggled to keep up in heavy plated armor. Sweat drenched the striped sweater as more part of Brainz's skin began to perspire madly, a stream of blood shot out from his damaged nostril from the rapid exertion, his eyes strained to navigate the dark path.

The bridge finally regained logic in it's design as it narrowed down to a linear path, Brainz fixed himself on the path and the hope of getting away flared up into his mind…. It didn't last long. Just as quickly as Brainz stopped hearing the sound of death by impalement the path in front of him ran out, leaving him gasping profanities.

" _What the Fuck is WITH this goddamned place?!"_ He burned the remainder of his anger with an infuriated growl that left him shaking violently. It was certain death from both ways, either he could fall endlessly and hope he finds a bed of spikes to end it quickly, or experience the joys of becoming a pincushion firsthand, Brainz felt his mouth drying up as the metallic footsteps came closer.

The dark figure emerged from the shadows slowly, Brainz could see the indents in the armor where the pellets impacted it. The towering figure sent Brainz into a state of hyperarousal similar to a cornered wolverine prepared to tear away the flesh of attackers or to simply tear away.

Undyne slowly approached him, towering over the petrified man, she stopped mere feet away from him.

Brainz blindly pointed the shotgun at her and pulled both of the triggers tensing for the kickback, his greatest fears were yet to come when he heard the damned sounds. *CLICK* *CLICK* The shotgun parted from his trembling hand clattering to the floor, the stock greased with sweat. Brainz instinctively pulled the switchblade from his pocket and brandished the blade, swinging it blindly in the air, reciting all the swears he could remember. Three spears came into his vision.

Undyne reared her arm to strike the man with them, the unforgiving blue steel burned into the the man's retinas. The sight of his mortality caused a spark in his mind to set off the culmination of absolute terror and pressurized fury, a burst of rage flared up inside of the man, veins throbbing and skin reddening.

Brainz blindly charged towards the monster releasing an inhuman, guttural war cry knife high in the air. His knife found it's mark as he plunged it into the left slit in the metal helmet, Undyne only stumbled back slightly from the puncture and blindly grazed one of Brainz arm with the cluster of spears, severing the backpack and knocking it and Brainz to the ground.

Brainz sprung back to his feet, still teething with adrenaline, he dashed towards Undyne again with death in his eyes. With the knife still stuck in her eye, Undyne hastily brought three more spears into play and with a heavy notion, smote the discarded backpack on the ground, splitting the wood beneath as well. Brainz screamed once more and leaped, pounding the knife handle into the helmet with all of his might, he progress was marked by the orange sparks that erupted from the collision.

Undyne retaliated, grabbing the man and lifting him over her shoulders while he flailed violently. His body slammed into the ground with a bone destroying *SMACK* the weakened bridge couldn't bear the stress any longer and severed from the holes sending Brainz into the darkness below showered by the contents of his split open backpack. His screams boomed through the open space, a mixture of fear and hatred but soon ceased, paving the way for absolute silence and darkness to creep in.


	4. Unwanted Exposition

IV

Unwanted Exposition

Sentiments flowed through the darkness... photos of the past collected together resurfacing memories long forgotten. Brainz found himself standing in the doorway of his childhood home, warmth from an open fire alluring him in, the good old times. His mother humming that familiar lullaby, filling the room with a gentle hymn. Child made drawings rested on the favorite reading chair, stories told on his mother's lap echoed from the cushions.

Brainz jovially walked onto the tiled floor of the kitchen, the smell of a fresh pie gilded the air. Life felt good, the small rustic home was something out of a dream, leaving fondness that could warm anyone's shivering soul. Brainz approached the maternal figure, working away on something good in a pie tin a sense of euphoria caressed his soul. His small hand outstretched to gently tug on her robe, a sheepish way to get her attention.

The sweet song abruptly stopped and the figure became motionless, Brainz began to feel a sense of dread climbing up his legs. "Mama?" The warm air filling the house ceased, giving away for an icy atmosphere. Brainz stepped back apprehensively, the figure finally turned around to face him and then it finally hit him, that wasn't his mother.

Toriel glared at him, her face an enigma of expressions of a hateful stare and a deformed grin ear to ear. She had been corrupted into something out of a feverish nightmare, ghastly injuries and tears in her robe plagued the twisted creature. The gentle lights faded out of existence leaving Brainz and his nightmare in the darkness. It spoke, with a mouthful of broken and jagged teeth. "The way _I_ see it, they'll come after you and then _he'll_ kill you."

Toriel's deformed face curved back into the demonic smile, water began pouring out of the open wounds littering her body slowly flooding the room. Brainz instinctively tried to flee but the rising liquid paralyzed his legs, leaving him to stare into the maddened red eyes. "You promised me that you'd never-" Toriel pointed the familiar black pistol between Brainz's eyes. "-But what does this say about _YOU?"_ The pistol discharged, the explosion flashed briefly before Brainz's eyes and the bullet felt like a pool of sub freezing salt water.

Brainz forced a raucous yell from his mucous lined throat, the blast slowly faded from his mind, the cold still bore through his skin like a drill carving into his bones. He shot up rapidly out of the water disorientated and scared, his head feeling twenty pounds heavier. Each heart beat pushing more of the nightmare from his aching head. The world eventually stopped spinning allowing Brainz to gather the remainder of his wits, he didn't know where to start. The nightmare had left him in the aftermath of a bad trip, shivering cold to the bone.

Brainz eventually concluded that he had returned to honest reality and his senses returned to him. Water dripped from his drenched clothes back into the knee deep pool, littered with pieces of wood debris of various sizes. A patch of yellow flowers floated in place, releasing ornate petals with the flow of the water. While attempting to wring out some of the water, Brainz was still restarting his mind, everything leading up to this point was still blurry.

That dream though… it was wrong in countless ways, mainly the memory of a legitimate childhood. Brainz rubbed the newly formed bump on his head and considered the memory, it was all a lie. Brainz could never recall a moment where he got along with his mother. She had never wanted anything to do with him and a recurring comment from her was how Brainz was a mistake. As far as Brainz knew, he never had a childhood, but yet the dream felt so very vivid and real. Those "memories" if he could call them so, surely weren't his.

A sharp pain caused Brainz to wince when he felt a hole just below his shoulder in the damp sweater. A narrow incision under the exposed fabric continued to bleed slowly, small red clouds diluted in the water. Then it hit him, he recalled the surge of adrenaline as he lunged at the armored figure and her spear slicing through his arm… and then the bag. Brainz noticed the distinct lack of weight on his back and as he felt for it he noticed the black carcass slightly buoyant above the water.

"Oh no, oh _noo!"_ Brainz trudged through the water and pulled the ragged backpack out of the pool, it was completely empty mind the water collected inside of it. Brainz tossed the bag and frantically searched the water for his things. "You little bastard… I swear I'm gonna gut you like a fish when I find you."

Brainz continued to damn Undyne to hell under his breaths as he felt the floor with his hands, trying to find anything that survived the fall. Hope ran through his veins when he felt something firm under the water, his eyes met with a deflated basketball. "What the?!" Brainz dropped the flabby thing back into the water and noticed the huge piles of garbage ahead.

"My god… is this some kind of garbage dump?" Brainz thought of it for a second and looked down at the water up to his knees. "That means that I'm standing in… dumpster water." Brainz began dry heaving, he'd probably vomit if he didn't consider how he'd be swimming in it. "Jesus Christ!, that piece of shit threw me away!"

On top of feeling like a worthless piece of trash with a concussion, Brainz groaned sadly with the realization that finding any of his possessions would be like finding a needle in a haystack, ballistic needles in a haystack of smelly waste. "My only advantages to actually leaving this place… gone-" Brainz exhaled angrily. "-I'd really like to have my gun _now,_ I've entered the second ring of hell and I don't have the easy way out."

Brainz waded through the waist deep filth with one hand over the open wound. "I _had_ some gauze for this in my bag… guess I'll just bleed for a bit longer." As Brainz passed more mountains of garbage, more thoughts began to return to his head. He took another peak at the fluid soaking into the striped fabric of the sweater and remembered the bloody nose.

 _That kid didn't know what blood was… granted it's just a kid but I'm sure it would've seen some form of it from the adults._ Brainz pondered some more, _Or maybe, they don't bleed… considering everything I've seen, it's a plausible theory._ A decrepit bike greeted him as he trudged along. _But then, that leaves Toriel._ Brainz rolled up his damp sleeve to see the equally damp bandages holding together. _How would she know about blood; about guns, or just me in general?_ Brainz sighed and reapplied pressure to his cut. _I knew I should've questioned her some more, guess I'll add that to the list of regrets for when I die down here._ Brainz continued through the dump feeling sorry for himself, he would've been content with complaining all day until something caught his eye floating in the water.

An orange cooler sat in the middle of the path, the colors were still bright and shiny as if it had just been thrown away. A sticky note lay on top decorated with squiggly juvenile handwriting. "Can you believe that someone would throw these away?" Reluctance to open the cooler aside, Brainz lifted the lid off slowly. He was taken back by the sight.

The contents were dry, preserved, neatly arranged, and ultimately his. Brainz looked around the dump trying to spot an ambush for him but was only greeted by discarded piles. He turned his attention back to the cooler, while he sure that all of his belongings weren't there, he knew how to be thankful for anything. Brainz immediately recognized his small black box perfectly intact, gun, lighter, cigarettes in all. Brainz lit up another smoke and continued to account for what he had. The sawed off shotgun was next to greet him.

"No way." The water would've flooded the compartments rendering it useless, but as he held it in the air there was no indication that it had ever gotten wet. Brainz desired to feel some level of relief, but he only grew more suspicious as he surveyed the items. _Who the hell did all this?_

Brainz kept this thought in mind as he ran the items through his head; A handful of shotgun shells, several grenades branded 'M-67' or 'M-84', a red crowbar with one end ground into a spear, a small suture kit… Brainz immediately paused his catalogue and snatched the red bag rifling through it for bandages. The original contents of the case had mostly been discarded when Brainz first found it, with little medical knowledge he would do more damage trying to sew himself back together than any assailant could dream to do. A half dozen of adrenaline autoinjectors buried the gauze rolls beneath.

After generously wrapping the cloth around his arm, Brainz spotted the final item in the gift box, a muddied and bloodied piece of worn leather lay folded neatly in the cooler. Brainz held it up and inspected the trench coat, it was his alright, marked by the dozen or so bullet holes in the lining.

 _How long was I out? Toriel just threw this away… right?_ Despite the condition of the clothing, Brainz still accepted and reunited himself with the worn jacket. The garment was warm and comforting Brainz embraced the leather like a security blanket. It was just how he remembered it mind for a peculiar weight in one of its pockets, Brainz pulled out a small cellphone wearing a similar note. "I like your spunk! You've got the right ideas, here's to make sure you can execute them. Keep in touch- Your secret admirer."

Brainz clutched the device hesitating for the same reason he never carried cell phones, he didn't like being tracked. He held both of the notes together, words speaking to him. The writing was curved and sloppy similar to the works of a child new to the world a literature, it vaguely reminded him of something, but even that was old news for him.

Finally, both of the notes were crumpled and returned to their cooler, the cell phone returned to its respective pocket. Brainz decided that who or whatever prepared the cooler for him would be friendly enough to trust, at least for now. He finished his cigarette and stuffed the deep pockets with his returned belongings, the shotgun was the last to go held against the leather skin by handles made of duct tape.

Brainz returned to his trudge through the waters, piles of garbage as his only company. He took a double take at a fractured mirror on the way. Wearing a black and red striped shirt and looking like absolute hell with a black trench coat brought a smile to his beaten up face. "All I need is a brown fedora and I've got the Freddy Krueger look." The sweater held his gaze however soaked with filthy water and partially blood, it didn't seem to have a use now other than being a biohazard yet Brainz felt no desire to discard it.

The water eventually met with an elevated path holding the exit. "Oh finally, I'm starting to get waterlogged." Brainz casually approached the lip more than ready to leave the dumping ground when a large splash halted him from the path. Brainz was incapable of being surprised and only sighed frustratedly, he was greeted by a crude statue made of cloth, it laughed.

"Haha! I bet you're too busy wetting yourself to face me now."

Brainz rolled his eyes, "A little late for that, I'm already soaked from the waist down, if you held your breath all day for that line then I'm really sorry bud."

The figure "ooh'd" sarcastically. "You're a real funny guy huh? Well I got a "joke" for you, I'm not even a dummy-."

Brainz slouched uninterested. "Oh?"

"-That's right! I am a ghost that lives inside of a dummy! And I've-."

"Can you please cut to the chase? I really don't have the time for this…"

The dummy scoffed. "Such insolence! I bet some wouldn't even want your soul, it's too arrogant! I oughta-"

Brainz interrupted again. "Wait, wait, wait… my soul? Somebody wants to take my-."

It was the dummy's turn to interrupt. "STOP INTERRUPTING ME!" The dummy shouted briefly and a small battalion of miniature figures emerged from the water.

"Uhoh."

All of the figures locked their sight on Brainz and quickly propelled objects towards him, he held up his arms waiting for the blows, but gently lowered them when he saw the "projectiles". Small balls of stuffing sporadically bumped into his chest falling into the water like dandelion puffs. Brainz raised an eyebrow, "Seriously?"

The dummy growled angrily, "We'll see how sure of yourself you are when I do _THIS!_ " The dummy brought a kitchen knife into the air and flung it straight for Brainz's forehead like a dart. The dummy gasped in disbelief and awe when the knife was arrested by a hand, blood dripping from the palm.

Brainz winced as he pulled the knife out pointing it at the dummy, "Okay, that's enough." Brainz slowly approached the cloth figured with the knife pointed accusingly in his outstretched arm.

The Dummy's army shrank back into the water leaving the thing staring speechlessly into its own knife.

Brainz lowered his voice growling his words. "Listen here _PAL_ I'm standing on the wrongside of a _really_ bad week and I'm _really_ not in the mood for more bullshit right now, cuz I think I'm at my threshold for being civil about it."

The dummy made feeble noises, suggesting the desire for words to come out.

"Shut up!-" Brainz pressed the red tip of the knife into one of the exposed seams on the figure's fabric skin. "-I've just about had it to 'here' with this place so far, and I think all I need is one little-" Brainz severed the seam with the knife. "- _Push_ before I lose it and tear into everyone who looks at me wrong like a pitbull spreading the entrails of a rabbit all over the grass!" Brainz clutched the neck of the figure with his other hand and pulled it closer to his face. "Yeah… it'll be _juuuuust_ like ripping the stuffing out of a cushion, one handful of the stuff at a time, until it's _alllll_ empty." Brainz felt his teeth being forced into a grimace as violent thoughts seeped out of his subconscious.

The figure was frozen in awe with any rational comebacks being consumed by the hateful eyes burning into it's soul. Finally… it laughed loudly. "Hahahahahaah! I like you!, I like what you've got going here-."

Brainz released his grip and stood up.

"-Look at you! You got a real psychopath look there, I think the eye twitching thing really holds it together." The figure laughed again. "Man, my cousin saw you being carried away by that goat lady in the ruins and I would've thought you were a pushover, _her little baaaybeee_."

The "complement" only further vexed him.

"Oh is that what I'm branded as down here? A joke? A doormat? Do I just invite you idiots to take swings at me like some sort of game?" Brainz pushed the Dummy aside and climbed onto the dry land. "Unbelievable, I'm out of here."

The dummy's laughter died down, "Hey, that's my only knife."

Brainz turned back to the figure and then to the knife, still slick with his own blood. "Here… take it, but first a message." Brainz licked his blood off of the knife and flung it at the dummy, sticking the blade into it's body. "I'm getting tired of this, YOU I'd consider lucky, but anyone after this?... Hopefully they'll get the message beforehand."

Brainz left the figure behind, it's laughter echoed through the passage. When Brainz was sure that he was out of sight he spat out the foul tasting liquid from his mouth rubbing his tongue to get rid of the flavor. "God, why did I do that?"

Brainz applied another portion of gauze to his damaged hand while still trying to rid himself of the pungent aftertaste of hemoglobins. He could still feel his left eye quivering angrily, it was completely blind, but he could still _feel_ it. Brainz restarted his cool appearance with some deep breaths trying to purge his mind of the images of rage. _No… not again… not ever._ Anything pertaining to the past was better off forgotten as they seldom brought sentiments, only dolor. "Hold on a sec."

Brainz stopped walking to survey the surroundings. "Where the hell am I going?" Five paths eagerly waited for him to choose, spread out like a hand flat on a table. Without any sense of direction, map, or guide Brainz was reduced to a game of "Eeeny Meeny Miny Moe". The winning path led him to a small enclosure, a menacing house filled the space. It looked like someone gutted a sea monster and filled it with furniture.

Brainz wasn't pleased with the sight, "Gross." It could've belonged to a particularly fanatical fisherman, assisted by the fish skeleton rug lying in front of the (mouth?) door, but a familiar cloth figure staring at Brainz shook this prediction. "You're not gonna jump out at me or anything… right?" It replied with silence. "Ok, well just in case you change your mind-" Brainz pulled back his coat to reveal the concealed shotgun. "-Y'know."

Brainz peered into the glass eye of the house into the darkness, looked like the owner wasn't home. Brainz sought to leave the property, being made out as a burglar wouldn't do him any favors in the future, he was about to turn around when a letter nailed to the door caught his eye. _It's not a felony to read someone's mail if they're not a "person" right?_ Brainz shrugged and grabbed the letter, stealing things wasn't exactly a new concept for him. He surveyed the letter but didn't make it passed the address on the envelope. 'UNDYNE"

"Oh really now?" The letter fell to the ground and received a second punishment by his boot, Brainz stopped back to survey the house again. "Makes sense… pretty fitting for a deranged prick."

The butt of Brainz's shotgun destroyed Undyne's window, Brainz began to clear the jagged glass from his entry point when a brighter idea came to mind. "If she lives here, I probably shouldn't stick around for too long. But I don't think I'll leave empty handed-" Brainz reached into his coat and pulled out one of a pair of M67 Hand grenades.

"-But just a little _emptier_ handed. Brainz ran his finger through the pin and tightened his grip. "I'd gladly use a molotov for your sorry ass, but I guess I'll make do with what I have." With that note, Brainz failed to separate the metal ring from the sphere, instead he slowly held his arm out to inspect the explosive again. "No…"

Brainz tossed the grenade in the air and caught it. "-I've only got two… and I think I'd risk seeing your face when I shove this one up your ass." The grenade returned to his pocket and he traversed down the runner up path.

"Oh cmon…"

Brainz sighed reaching another intersection in his way, he was already doubtful of the path he chose this time, but it seemed the world wanted him to be sure that he was going the _wrong_ way. An ornate wooden chest marked the division, it stood need to a smaller tunnel within the wall. Brainz considered looting the thing, but he could faintly hear heavy breathing coming within the darkened space behind the box.

"No thanks." He left quickly. Brainz felt marginally better over his choices when he spotted another pair of blue signs edged into the cavern wall, he was eager to see what they had to say.

"Hurt, Beaten, and Fearful for our lives, we surrendered to the humans. Seven of their greatest magicians sealed us underground with a magic spell."

Brainz began laughing at the messages he only continued reading with a chuckle.

"Anything can enter through the seal, but only beings with a powerful enough SOUL can leave-" Another fit of coughing and laughing, this time when he resumed reading he spoke in a mocking tone.

"-There is only _one_ way to reverse this spell, oh boy! If a _Huuuuuge_ power, equivalent to seven human _SOOOULS_ oh spooky, attacks the barrier, it will be destroyed _and then we can all sit down for a spot of tea and fairy dust_."

Brainz howled with laughter forced to lean against the wall until his legs regained integrity.

Brainz wiped the tears from his face and slightly regained his composure, joking out loud to a crowd that wasn't there. "I mean _really,_ Magic? The power of souls? Oh man, I don't think I can take _that!_ I mean… I can accept the weirdos down here, and even then I don't know why, but magic?" Brainz stood up and sighed, letting the remainder of his immature giggles out. "Magic isn't real.. This is just a joke."

He continued down the path another sign awaited him but he neglected to read it seeing that they didn't have anything serious to say. "Man… I bet that spaz back in the dumps put these up or something _Ooohohoho We're gonna get your soul!_ Please." He continued, still entertaining himself. "Next, they're gonna tell me that I am 'The One' to complete their dark ritual with pentagrams and cool robes… hah." With that sarcastic remark Brainz began to ponder, _Hmmmmm now that I think about it that marking on Toriel's robe, the white wings with all that stuff, I've seen that before… it was on the doors to that place too…_

"What the?" A room completely drenched with darkness met Brainz as he proceeded mind for a narrow path of grass lit from the radiance of a blue mushroom colony. Brainz approached the blue fungi and placed a hand over his mouth, mushrooms weren't supposed to glow and the only thought going through his head was a blatant accusation. _Radiation._ If he was correct, then agitating the irradiated colony wouldn't do him any good other than potentially inhaling contaminated spores.

Feeling around with his feet, Brainz felt more ground, proceeding away from the blue light, his lighter snapped open to add an orange glow to the air. From the actual ground he could see, it looked like he had a whole day of fumbling through the dark ahead of him. "Well that's just goddamned peachy, I must be going the right way now." Brainz sighed.

"Go right on through sir." The narrow gate slowly lifted into the air letting Mordegrid under the metal door. "Take the third turn on your right, there's a school with a large parking lot for your car." The soldier beckoned for the rest of the convoy to enter behind the black crown victoria.

Mordegrid edged his vehicle forward waiting for the passing units to part for him on the road, he spotted what he was looking for on the side of the road. "Kocrenzi Valley Elementary." For such a small town, the school building was notably large sporting three stories of vacant classrooms and empty hallways. Mordegrid found his space amongst the gathering of APC's and armored trucks, the army of patrol units had been replaced by these vehicles leaving Mordegrid's car as the black sheep of the herd.

Mordegrid stepped out of the vehicle to rest against the top of the car, his legs weren't quite as ready as he was becoming desensitized by the grueling nine hour drive. Mordegrid peered into his car while still regaining stability on his legs the sight of it sickened him, while normally being compulsively emmaculate over his belongings he dropped that priority for a pile of spent coffee cups and fast food wrappers. His mindset was solely focused on this man, Brainz first, worry later.

"Mister."

Mordegrid turned from the car to face three men attired in camouflage gear.

"Mister Mordegrid, we've been told to bring you to the local holding station on your arrival."

Mordegrid titled his head confused. "I don't know who told you to do that, but I told two thirty-seven that I would consult with the-"

The soldier held up his hand. "Officer Thompson was relieved from his post and sent home, we've taken operational control of this situation."

Mordegrid stiffened up with a skeptical look paired with an accusative tone. "And Just _who_ are you to take control of this case? Because _I_ know that _I'm_ the captain in charge of-."

Another soldier interrupted him. "The National Guard."

Mordegrid's eyes widened, "What? I wasn't informed of this at all, _I_ should've been updated about this!"

The middle soldier wiped his brow. "I'm just following orders, you'll have to consult with sergeant Pailurn at the station-" He beckoned for Mordegrid to follow. "-So if you could please- come with me."

Mordegrid exhaled sharply through his nose scowling, anything remotely challenging to his authority was bad news for everyone, but even he knew that he would have little power in an argument here. "Fine."

The local police station was a small place fitting for the town itself, under normal operation it would have only seen two people spending the night behind bars. The walk wasn't long considering every building in the town was within walking distance, but even so the tread to the station lasted longer in Mordegrid's mind. Green shaded humvees and M-35s were the only vehicles on the road only yielding to the troopers crossing the dirt pavement.

Two men stood their ground in the front doorway M16s in hand. "What's this? Who's the suit?" Mordegrid could see their fingers nervously dancing around the triggers.

"Stand Down, this is the guy-." The escort made air quotes. "-Captain Mordegrid of the _New York Police Department_." The doormen lowered their weapons and moved from the door wearing smug grins. "Of course, _please_ come in, you have been expected."

Mordegrid choose against an aggressive comeback and entered the lobby, still assisted by his welcoming party. Mordegrid was lead through the small building into a smaller office marked by a single nameplate on the door, "SHERIFF."

"Captain Mordegrid! Oh please, come in!" A friendly voice rang from behind the desk. Mordegrid shuffled in, the door clicked shut behind him leaving the room in silence. A large man with a freshly buzzed head stood hunched over the desk with a large smile on his face.

"Why don't you do me a favor and sit down."

Mordegrid could sense the deception in the voice, clearly this man was pissed, but Mordegrid obeyed sitting down on the folding chair.

"So tell me- what brings you down to these parts? You sure are a very _so very_ long ways from _your_ jurisdiction." The generous smile concealed a hidden rage.

Mordegrid cleared his throat and tried to sound confident. "I do apologize for the delay, I mean I _was_ supposed to be issued a helicopter escort by Six AM on a monday morning, but _something_ or _someone_ didn't let that happen. So I had to drive straight from Amherst down here." The man behind the desk feigned a gasp, Mordegrid continued. "Yes, and when I tried to get some answers someone must have screwed with the radio channels because I didn't get an answer until your pals outside decided to strike a joke."

The man behind the desk laughed loudly, banging his hands on the wooden top until he had enough of himself."Oh my, that really is something. Poor Lunezo's having a bad day, and you want to know what the worst part of that is?"

Mordegrid opened his mouth. "Wha-."

"Rhetorical question." The man's cheery facade faded away. "Let me tell you something, Your helicopter? We sent it home, and your command? It doesn't exist anymore. In fact, just letting you sit here and spout that bullshit to me is already against policy." The man sat down and cracked his knuckles. "Now, I want you to do me another favor and tell me what _you_ know is going on here, cmon I want to hear it." The man held a hand to his ear.

Mordegrid rolled his eyes and sighed. "The National-"

"Yes! That's it! The National Guard! You know, the _United States MILITARY?"_

Mordegrid leaned back in his chair silent.

"What's wrong _Captain?_ I figured you'd know what you're going into if you're gonna ignore everything being told to you and just waltz down into our mission expecting a grand welcome wagon."

Mordegrid only glared at the sergeant, furiously twiddling his thumbs as sweat beaded up on his neck.

"Now, I could place you under arrest for this blatant insubordination and send you back with one of every dishonorable discharge because you are _waaaaay_ out of your jurisdiction and frankly out of line." The man shook his finger at the Captain. "Or… I could spare you from driving all day up to this rathole only to be kicked back."

Mordegrid raised one of his brows. "What do you mean?"

The sergeant took a deep breath and lowered his voice. "I know all about how this case plays out for you and even if I didn't know a lick of truth about it I could still see by you going out on a limb to come up here that this is a personal thing for you."

Mordegrid shuffled nervously in his chair.

The sergeant stroked his mustache. "So what I can do, provided you stay on your leash like a good mutt, is let you stay up here to watch _real_ hardworking people do their jobs."

"You're serious now?" Mordegrid felt a large veil of stress being lifted off of his shoulders. "You're not gonna report me in or something like that?"

The man behind the desk stood up and shrugged. "Nah, I'll note that we requested your specific skills to assist with this search mission… so-." His arm outstretched towards Mordegrid. "-Do we have an understanding then?" Mordegrid felt a sense of uneasiness around this man, but he accepted the deal and shook his hand. "Great! Now I'm gonna assume you wanna head up to the mountain and see the place for yourself yeah?"

"Actually, No." Mordegrid put his hands on his belt and looked around the small office at the sparse filing cabinets. "What I'd like to know is if you could tell me any stories about this place." The sergeant leaned back on the desk

. "You want me to tell you a story? I get that you're happy I didn't reprimand your ass but don't be getting any ideas about kissing mine thinking I'm gonna open up to you."

Mordegrid let out an exasperated sigh. "No!... you freaking-." He clenched his fists and relaxed his grip and temper. "-No… what I'm asking for is any background on this place, mostly the mountain itself."

"Uh… we wouldn't have anything like that, no."

Mordegrid shuddered slightly and raised an eyebrow. "Oh yes you would, if you're military then I know you're part of the Department of Defense."

The sergeant wasn't following. "Okay?"

"That's pretty high clearence, at least higher than mine, and that means that you can pretty much get _whatever_ you want _whenever_ you want out of the feds."Mordegrid rubbed his hands together, "In that case, you must have a way of knowing something about this place that I obviously don't… does Anonymous Cases ring a bell?"

The sergeant perked up, his eyes widened and mouth slightly ajar as if this was new to him, he let out a single laugh in the form of a "heh." "This mountain here? Mount Ebott? Is under something called Anomalous cases for you?"

Mordegrid sighed again. "Yeah, and I'm completely locked out of it, God you wouldn't believe the things I did trying to get into it." Mordegrid wiped more sweat off of his brow. "Please tell me you've got the ranks to get that kinda info, I mean you're an officer or something right?"

"Army _Sergeant_ Richard Pailurn, if you may and I think we can look into that. It'll just take some time but we've got _all_ the clearance we need." Sergeant Pailurn stood up again and waved his hand to the door, two silhouettes behind the foggy window moved away and the door creaked open. "So, in the meantime would you like to see the place then?"

Mordegrid grinned and removed his suit jacket, "Definitely, I've been dying to see how this place could've let that rat escape." Both men left the room, Mordegrid leading the way.

When Mordegrid stepped out of the lobby Pailurn turned to the two men guarding the door and nodded. "Yeah he's on board, we're practically invisible. This is the place alright, and he's gonna prove it."

"Yes yes, hello…" Brainz groaned sounding more tired with each greeting.

"Cum, met mi frend also!" The small creature implored for Brainz to continue down the line of smiling faces.

"Let me guess, this is your friend Temmie?"

The creature bounced excitedly, "Yeh! And this iz also mi oder _ODER_ frend-"

Brainz sighed, "Temmie I presume?"

The creature widened its eyes. "WoOooow yu kno nams alrdy!, yu smart!"

Brainz turned to his guide, restraining the urge to groan annoyedly. "And then you must be… -."

"Bob."

Brainz stifled a surprised yell. "Right." Brainz looked around dejectedly at all the bright eyed "Temmies." Smiling innocently at him, _Those luminescent mushrooms must've been more potent than I thought, this is like a fever dream gone wrong._

"Hey Mistur."

"Yes?" Brainz put all of his will power into a straight face.

'Bob' nodded its head towards a depression in the cave wall. "Yu shud chek out the Tem shop fore stuf to help yu."

 _You've gotta be kidding me._ "Alright, thanks." To his disbelief he had actually walked into a legitimate retail store, or at least the closest thing resembling a bazaar.

"Hoi, Welkum to the tem shop!"

Brainz rubbed the back of his neck akwardly, "Uh Hi… what-" He swallowed. "-What do you have in stock?"

"We hav, Tem Flakes; Tem Flakes; and expensuve Tem Flakes."

Brainz played along confused, "Uh huh… and what are tem flakes exactly?"

The creature brought a handful of discs hole punched out of varying cuts of construction paper.

 _Is that blot paper?_ Brainz stared at the circles completely flabbergasted without any words to return, his mind was frantic. _Holy shit! I'm definitely staring at a party's dose of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, they've got drugs down here!_ Brainz looked back at the exhuberated shopkeep, his eyes were almost as wide as its. _Oh my god, that would explain it._ "Um, no thanks." Brainz had a stupid thought. "Hey, probably a long shot but… do you have some kind of map or directions to leave the wetlands?"

Brainz's jaw nearly hit the floor when he got his answer in perfect english."Of course, when you exit Temmie Village keep going forward but make a right at the next colony of glowshrooms, they'll mark the path for you, try not to bring any other sources of light near them as they don't shine very well otherwise, you'll find the waterfall and then you can proceed to the hotlands." It sat back and smiled innocently at the bewildered man.

"Uhhhh… thanks a million? I'll be on my way then?"

"Bu Bye!"

Brainz walked out of the village rubbing his eyes vigorously and pinching himself to make sure he was actually awake. He didn't make use of his lighter again unlike his period of fumbling through the maze, despite being fearful over the potentially psychedelic mushrooms, he found his way. _God, I can't believe they've got shit like LSD down here, these mushrooms are probably trip inducing too!_

Brainz wanted nothing to do with mood altering substances since his promise to himself years ago, passed experiences lead him to stay off of the stuff. Smoking would've been his last habit to break, but at this point the lack of it would break him.

Brainz returned to the light, a sigh of relief ran through him. _Oh man, dot n spots back there was legit! Drugs are weird._ He spotted another echo flower next to a depression filled with tall grass.

Brainz squinted his eyes skeptically and shrugged loudly. "Oh boy! A pretty blue flower! I think I'll go and listen to it! I just hope that _NO-ONE_ interrupts me!" The booby trap was a little too obvious for anybody to fall for it, Brainz played along to appease whoever set it. He approached the flower and reached for the petal but stopped abruptly when a thought hit him.

"Oh wait, I already forgot once!" Brainz removed the twelve gauge from his coat and snapped it open, the two cases inside were long spent and fell to the ground. Brainz muttered as he snatched two shells from his pocket, "If I did this earlier I would've been a much happier man, chalk one up for regrets." *CLICK*

Brainz pointed the two barrels towards the tall grass and slowly caressed the petals of the blue flower, eyes dead on the grass.

"Behind you."

Brainz lost his focus, "What?" He darted his attention away from the grass to see the figure emerge from the darkness, hate began to boil in his blood. "YOU…" The shotgun pointed at Undyne, "You really took your time coming to make sure I was dead, haven't you heard of checking your work?"

For the first time, it spoke directly to Brainz, it sounded calm yet threatening. "Seven souls… seven souls is all we need so that our king-."

"Cut the crap." Brainz brandished his weapon, despite the rage bubbling under his skin he spoke in a similar calmness. "I'm not one for fairy tales and stories, No. In fact, I don't believe in any of it; magic, the power of love and friendship… happy endings, No."

Undyne stood motionless,

Brainz casually wiped residues off of the weapon barrel. "Now- from what I've been seeing all over this place it looks like all that bullshit is the foundation of everything this dungeon stands for." He cocked his head to the side and closed one of his eyes, giving Undyne a skeptical look. "So, even thick minded dogs... like you-." The shotgun nodded at her. "-Could take a _magical_ guess that I probably don't belong down here. Well, you'd be right! And I'd be the first to commend you too, but right now my priorities aren't to fuck around with you lot, No." Brainz sighed and shook his head somberly before returning to his stance aiming at Undyne. "In fact, what I _really_ want to do may surprise you… wanna hear?"

Brainz shot his trademark sarcastic grin at the armored figure, he expected some answer but was left to his own monologue.

"Great! Well… what I'd like to do is _leave_ this place and be on my way out of your hair, y'know kinda what I think everyone else down here wants? But then I find myself dealing with closed minded assholes, like you- who'd prefer for me to linger here for the longest time possible, enabling me to commit all sorts of atrocities! Can you imagine?"

The sheer amount of sardonic friendliness in his voice was both patronizing and insulting, Undyne's hands balled into fists while she continued to let the man rebuke her.

"And judging from the _lovely_ poems on your walls-." Brainz spook with an acute patronising tone while making air quotes. "- _'The Big Bad Humans'_ Have already had their swing on you miserable dregs."

Undyne didn't reply and Brainz couldn't tell but, under her armor she was twitching furiously, teeth abrasively scraping against each other.

"Alright, I think I've had my fill… so why don't you show me that you can rub two brain cells together and show me how to leave-" The next thing he'd say would probably be a mistake. "- Maybe we'll swing by mister dremel or whoever and I'll forget the mistakes you made… I probably shouldn't blame you anyways, all those extra chromosomes must be such a burden to carry." That was the point of no return if he'd ever saw one. Now he was able to see her body shaking, teething with fury, forget hitting a bad nerve he probably hit all of them.

Undyne still left the man without a response, instead her trembling arms slowly reached for her helmet, Brainz could see the scratch marks in the eye slit. The helmet clattered to the ground, Brainz raised his brows when he got an eyeful of what he created. The one eye that was staring at him was practically blood red, it twitched violently, the sharp irregular teeth were fused together into a tight snarl.

 _Me and my big mouth, I probably shoulda let her run hers._

Brainz made one final comment, the final nail on his coffin. "That's funny… I made a comment earlier about gutting you like a fish when I got my hands on you-."

Two handfuls of gleaming blue spears reared back rapidly, Undyne only uttered a guttural noise, " _NYAAAAAH!"_ "Aw shit…."

Blinding blue projectiles bolted to the wall, Brainz made for the floor, diving to the left. The cone of the spears was tight, any hesitation and all of them would've made their mark in his heart or adjacent organs. Undyne prepared another spear and clenched it in both arms like a battering ram, Brainz could only see the edge charging towards him full steam.

* _BLAM!*_

The shotgun sent a shockwave echoing through the cavernous passages, the barrage of lead knocked Undyne off of her footing, the spear was knocked out of her hands. Brainz took the opportunity, he jumped to his feet leaving Undyne still dazed, he turned back to face her and the shotgun followed. His shot was clear, her head turned back to see the barrel point blank from mangling her face.

* _BLAM!*_

Undyne felt the force of another shot drilling into her back, the lethality was impeded by her armor but the force knocked her down to all fours. In the moment of stupor Undyne considered that the human must've aimed too low, how that could've been possible at such a low range was a mystery. When she got back to her feet again, she barely caught the sight of the man taking the path she concealed before. "Nyah! Of course he would!"

Brainz bounded through the flooded path taking leaps out of the water to maintain his speed, through the frantic splashes he heard an enraged voice trailing behind him.

" _Get back here you little PUNK!"_

He had no sense of direction or elevated thought, his mind wasn't running but he sure was. The ground ahead began to darken, Brainz didn't have the luxury to slow down and bring out a light. The metallic footsteps raging behind him synced with his heart thumping loudly.

 _This is REALLY starting to become a trend with me, running for my life in the dark from something REALLY pissed!_ Brainz felt the presence advancing on him from behind. _I should really consider my life's choices and-_

* _CRA-ACK*_

Brainz met an abrupt dead end with his face.

Undyne's snarl conformed into a sadistic grin seeing the man fall backwards like a domino. She proceeded to his groaning body and grabbed him by his bloodied chin forcing him against the wall with strangling force. She began laughing at the feeble noises erupting from his throat as he began to turn blue.

"Here, let me help you with that!" Her other arm held another blue strike, it pressed itself against the man's forehead, he thrashed desperately.

Brainz felt his vision began to cloud, the image of the hideous grin would be the last thing he saw as Undyne pulled her arm back to drive the spear into his head. Brainz tasted the blood collecting in his mouth and winced… then an idea tasted like iron inside of his mouth. Using the remainder of his breath, his cheeks expelled a salivated glob of blood into Undyne's face, trying to spray her eye.

"AUUGH GROSS!" The killing spear was halted as she tried to wipe the fluids off of her face, Brainz took to instinct and brought the unloaded weapon up. The jagged barrels bore into Undyne's cheek, twisting and thrashing to inflict as much pain and damage as a desperate man could create.

It worked, her grip weakened enough for Brainz put his torso into a swing using the butt of his shotgun as a bludgeon against Undyne's temple. She yelled in agony and stumbled back, holding the the damaged part of her face, Brainz saw the turn that he should've made and cultivated on the choice into the cave.

He didn't make it very far before halting in his tracks doubling over panting raggedly. Being able to pull off an act he did just shy of suffocation was nothing short of a miracle, but even after his feat he couldn't find the wind to run anymore. The choke bruise throbbed with each returning gasp, Brainz counted his pained breaths waiting for another sound to accompany his misery. The footsteps returned to mind but halted yards away, Brainz knew what to expect when he turned around.

There she stood, deep lacerations on her cheek resting below streaks of drying blood, spear in hand. "Human… if you even _are_ one-" Her spear twirled rapidly in hand. "-I tried to be respectful-" Undyne wiped more of the man's blood off of her wound. "-I tried to explain-." Her neck tilted to the side, cracking loudly. "-and I tried to be reasonable… but _YOU…_ you… you've showed me why we persecute _your_ kind with damning evidence."

Undyne looked down shaking her head slowly, and let out a long sigh. "Throughout all of my life, I have seen everything… and yet you've been a burning contradiction to that. _YOU_ and you alone in the hours I've been cursed with having to interact with you… have shown me that _you_ are the dirtiest human ever to poison our homes, our _prison_ , let alone to live."

Brainz spat out another glob of blood from his damaged gums and returned the hateful gaze to its sender. "I'd say that I'm hardly the worst, but you think otherwise… then I'd hate to break it to you but you've been sheltered from the _real_ world, wallowing in your own belligerence." Brainz split the shotgun apart, Undyne watched the shells clatter to ground, clicking echoing through the cavern. Brainz felt a lone shell remaining in his pocket and sighed, his last piece of ammo entered the gun and was sealed inside. "In fact, I'd tell you how much a stroll outside would do you some good, but I think we both know that I'm not in any mood to help you… if you _can_ be helped that is."

Undyne shook her head woefully and angrily, "How STUPID can you _BE?!_ " The tail of the spear pierced the rocky floor, sending chunks of stone into the air. "You don't know anything and yet you flourish yourself as if you know more than anyone down here! I TRIED to tell you, I TRIED to show you the way, I TRIED-."

Brainz laughed in disbelief. "By trying to skewer me with blue spears? I think you need some work."

"ENOUGH!" Her voice ran through the halls. "And yet, you scornfully refuse to listen to any form of reason, and return my kindness with your filthy tricks and disgusting tactics." Undyne picked up one of the loosened stones, caressing it with her hand. "I'm sure even a punk like you understands that it's all over here."

Brainz nodded. "Yeah, I'll side with ya on that."

"The last human who came this way… I gave them a fighting chance-." Undyne Held out her spear. "-But I don't think you deserve one." The rock imploded inside of her grip, disintegrating into powder.

Brainz pulled back his coat, Undyne watched diligently as the red crowbar left the strap. Brainz discarded the shotgun and gripped his new weapon with both hands. "One way or the other… someone's going to leave this place with a heavier conscience-." Brainz tensed into a defensive stance."-Your Move."


	5. Unseen Rage

V

Unseen Rage

"So this is it?" Mordegrid stood before a massive vertical wall, the smooth stone surface was hot to the touch from the sun.

"Yep, you're lookin at the last place he was seen up to the final foot." Pailurn was the only soul accompanying the police captain on the plateau amongst legions of forensic equipment lying dormant on the grassy floor. "Take a look on the ground… right there." Pailurn pointed to the edge of the green creeping up the sharp incline."

"Dried blood?" Mordegrid bent over to the brown streaks painting the grass, while sporadic and messy they seemed to conform into a general path leading to the rock wall. Mordegrid followed the trail up until its end splattered all over the silvery stone. "What's the story on _this?_ "

Pailurn followed the trail with his finger starting from the wall to the edge of the cliff. "So, the few folks that actually got up here to see our man, we had about four sources or so-."

Mordegrid stood up "Uh-huh."

"-They tell me that one of the K-9s got up here before them and gave ole Brainzy a pre taste of his comeuppance." Pailurn held up his arm and made comedic growling noises.

"Seeing that he hasn't been beaten into a coma in the back of a squad car, he somehow got away from the dog and ultimately us then?" Mordegrid looked further up the rockwall for anymore streaks of blood.

Pailurn glanced up as well. "Well, this part is where their stories began to fall under the wagon, so I'm picturing this guy stumbling to the ground with seventy pounds of german shepherd tearing him apart, and you know how he is… a pain to the bitter end-." Pailurn motioned towards the blood drops again. "-Now, normally I'd expect that to be the end of his journey, being bit to pieces until a lawmaker pulls the dog away and cuffs this guy."

Mordegrid nodded and shrugged, "Yeah, that's what I wanted to hear three days ago."

Pailurn nodded back, "You and me both… but what I was told from those who saw him... it was completely different… in fact I almost thought that they grew a pair and decided to play a joke."

Mordegrid squinted one of his eyes confused, "What do you mean?"

Pailurn stared at the wall. "Mordegrid, when I asked those men all four of them told me that the guy just… vanished leaving only the confused dog behind."

Mordegrid wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the statement, but now wasn't the time for unprofessionalism. "He went… like…?-" Mordegrid placed his sweaty palms against the solid stone. "-Through this?... right here?"

Pailurn grimly nodded. "Yes… they all said the same thing, he was here one moment and then gone the next."

Mordegrid patted the rock looking for anything, a deception, a false door, an explanation out of anything.

"You're wasting your time Lunezo, we already tried that, it's solid all the way through the other side of this miserable rock."

"You can't honestly believe something like that, or at least expect _ME_ to believe that, how can that be possible? Who were the officers who told you that? I want to ask them myself."

Pailurn straightened his throat blatantly. "Remember, you're not here on command, but privilege, doubting me really isn't the way to keep it."

Mordegrid began to grow irritated. "But, how the hell am I supposed to just leave it like that? 'Oh, he just phased right into the wall and that's the end of it!' There has to be something else to it. This guy is notorious for playing us up for shit like that. He must have found another way down or up, you better be searching the surrounding wilderness and-."  
"What did I _just_ say to you? _We've_ been doing the necessary protocols for this, not some local law enforcement with a hard on for public praise, and certainly not _YOU._ Ask yourself, if _we,_ the military, are told to take over because _your_ efforts aren't enough, can you just imagine just for a moment without putting your pride first that maybe _we_ may be better equipped and instructed than you?" Pailurn had his arms crossed looking overbearing on Mordegrid. "I didn't let you tag along because I want you to doubt my men or I, I could just as easily change my mind about this if you would like… SIR."

"I'm sorry… sir." Mordegrid slumped away from the brown stained surface. "This is all just so… conflicting. It's typical that by some form of ill acquired miracle that he gets away like he always has, but at the same time it's just too far fetched this time. I guess that just makes this place all the more suspicious… any news on accessing that dossier on this place?"

"Still haven't gotten anything back, still waiting." Pailurn began to scale down the cliff. "You gonna come down?"

Mordegrid turned to follow, "Sure." Seeing the buildings just over the distance from his height, something struck his memory. "Wait a second."

Pailurn brought himself back to the ground, "What?"

He approached Mordegrid as the Captain unfolded a technical map from his pocket. "That building, the circular one right at the edge of the plot… That's an archive, see right on the map 'Ebott Wilderness Assimilated Document repository." Mordegrid tapped the small circle on the creased paper.

"So? What about it?"

Mordegrid scoffed. "Obviously, you wouldn't find a better source of information besides a building made for storing the very history about a place."

"Damn, that's some good thinking right there! How did you get that in your head from up here?"

Mordegrid folded the map and began to scale down heading back to the town. "To be honest, I knew about it since I looked this place up, hence the map, in fact that was where I wanted to go when I first arrived, but y'know." He held up the map.

Pailurn followed after. "Well that's convenient, let's see what this place has to say about this little ole mountain." Mordegrid chimed in, "And indirectly about our mutual interest."

"WHY WON'T YOU DIE ALREADY?!" The strikes were becoming restless, blue flashes crashing into the hardened steel bar. Undyne barked periodically at Brainz between her onslaughts of projectiles trying to form conversation.

Brainz didn't have the luxury for speaking, the attacks were ruthless against his crowbar with the might from each block coursing through his entire being.

Undyne was growing increasingly agitated, countless spears were sent the man's way but none were delivered, instead they were intercepted by the metal weapon signaling each failure with a blossom of blue sparks.

"I know that humans are determined, but this is ridiculous!" The lack of versatility in the man's actions was maddening, no deliberate strikes; attempts for retaliation, or counters. Instead he merely stymied her best attempts to take him down, all while making it look _easy._ She paused the ineffective barrage to catch her breath, a gamble but not unwise seeing that the man did the same. In fact the only thing Undyne could hear out of him was a harder set of pants and raspy gasps. "Just give up, half of you already has."

Undyne complemented the taunt by running her finger across her neck, phoning in a comical sound to accompany it.

Brainz still didn't contribute to the conversation but he didn't leave Undyne without a response. A callused hand turned it's back on her concealing every finger… the middle digit stood defiant, in a gesture of pure defiance.

"The Hell's that supposed to mean?"

Brainz wouldn't say a word, he merely smiled sarcastically at her while still catching his breath. Undyne snarled angrily and resumed the assault still continuing the dysfunctional conversation. "You know- I've done this before- not for myself- but for the good of my people." Undyne decided to stick with one spear, coming up close to impale the man with no avail. "But you- this'll be- personal!"

Undyne was growing restless, she couldn't land even one lousy blow on the resilient human. The harsh dinging from the futility of her spears on the tool served as recollections of failure, they mocked and laughed at her. It made no sense! The fight had already ended in her expectations and yet here she was, tiring herself out with the latest scum of society.

Undyne was physically larger than this human; better trained than this human, better equipped than this human, and driven by a greater passion than this human, yet "this human" was defying the odds with nothing but a tool meant for opening crates. Even yet there was something about his stance, Undyne had the strangest feeling that he was holding back… something.

"Enough warming up! It's time to end this!" Undyne removed the spear from play and stomped backwards, "If you're so high and mighty, this will suit your barbaric tastes!"

Brainz expected another round of blue death to come his way, his crowbar was braced to intercept more punishment. However, Undyne was recycling an older trick that the trusty piece of hardware wouldn't… _couldn't_ save him from. The ground under his feet hummed loudly, Brainz only fetched a glimpse of the brilliant cyan fluorescence before it shot up inches from his face. Similar jagged lights emerged soon after, causing the man to hop spontaneously.

"If you think I'm going to let you stand in the way of everyone's hopes and dreams-." Undyne looked into her non outstretched hand and furiously balled it into a fist. "- _Then you've got another thing coming!"_ They were everywhere, frantic radials of impossible blue fury coned around the man creating a jagged sarcophagus. With mortality closing in again Brainz faced his aggressor and witnessed grand act.

" _YOU think YOU'RE determined? Well I… AM… TOO!"_ A blue flame erupted from her eye, she yelled with effort as her hands came together, the spears would soon follow.

Brainz violently lunged forward in a full dive careening away from the epicenter of a pincushion in the making. He saw the brief expression of awe in her face, then the look of anxiety growing closer. The sounds of conflict returned, metallic reverberations careening down the cavernous halls. _What's… what's going on?_ Something was… different, from the weapons clashing together, Brainz was stricken with anxiety when he pieced it together: The anxiety on Undyne's face and the nature of the strikes.

Those attacks were _his._

By the time Undyne recovered from the initial awe stricken stupor, that crowbar had smacked her four times at the least and even now as she held up a spear to block, the strikes were ruthless and didn't spare her a chance to do anything.

 _No… no! This is wrong… WRONG… what am I doing?!_ Brainz felt the tear between his thoughts and his actions, the grizzled man was viciously clawing at a retreating monster. His body had gone completely feral yet his very self was watching his actions, feeling helpless, Undyne too.

"Nyah! What the hell is this?! How did he change this so quickly?!" This wasn't the same human that was mocking her before, this wasn't even _human._ Undyne began counting the steps backwards, it wouldn't be long until she would be pushed against a wall.

 _Seven_

The "human" wasn't showing any signs of consistent exhaustion or remorse, just a whirlwind of fury.

 _Sixteen_

The look on the human's face mesmerized her, she'd seen twenty shades of anger in it before but this face was blank as if what she was fighting was no more than a violent husk without a soul.

 _Twenty-Fi-_

Undyne's armor clanked against the stone. "Ack!"

She had lost her focus for a slim moment, just enough for the crowbar to hook the spear out of her hands. Undyne's gaze flared with dread, "Shit!"

The metal teeth stopped gnawing into the iron apparel leaving both beings staring into each other. Brainz could see behind the twitching eye, it was flush with fear and uncertainty.

Undyne could only see darkness, a remorseless gaze… and the crowbar rising to the cavernous ceiling.

The metal teeth of the tool stared at Undyne's forehead, they were raised high above the provoked man's head with the intention to smite the very soul that lay below. Undyne saw a reprieve standing before her, mainly between the man's legs. Her metal boot found it's mark with a satisfying (* _ **CRUNCH!*)**_

The crowbar left his hands, Brainz buckled his arms and legs together, meekly wheezing a noise similar to a tea kettle screaming for attention. He was ultimately hors de combat as he lay on the ground in a crumpled ball of pain.

Undyne approached the mess on the ground and smirked. "Oh wow I didn't think that rumor about humans was actually true! I'll have to thank Alphys later."

The man on the ground didn't acknowledge her and continued wincing at its own feeble gasps. Brainz himself didn't feel the control of his own mortal being, but he sure felt the pain.

"Alright, I think we've both had enough, I'm gonna end this."

Through the harsh ringing, blunt throbbing, and the crippling agony below, the man pulled his eyelids slightly ajar to a blurred world that was still spinning. The only distinguishable entity was blue and it was pointed between his strained eyes. One arm found the courage to leave the site of impact and weakly held itself up to Undyne, Palm facing Brainz. The middle finger stood its ground again, but instilled only vexation to the man's executioner.

Undyne let out an exasperated sigh and dropped the sadistic grin from her face along with the spear. "Okay, seriously… what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Brainz began swallowing pockets of air along with gag reflexes and began to piece together hardscrabble words. He was still at a loss for control but the agony from trying to speak was still present, his mouth still forced the phonics out. "You… you… you…"

Undyne bent down to his clammy face, they were mere inches from each other. "I what?"

Brainz tightly closed his eyelids and forced a deep breath of air into his lungs, his eyes shot open and gave Undyne another blank stare. " _Fuck_ … You."

Brainz's arm shot up from under his coat sending a metallic cylinder straight in the air, Undyne jumped up and snatched it out of it's course stifling a laugh, "Really now? What's this gonna do to-."

Brainz rolled over and cupped his hands over his ears. Undyne stopped snickering at him and turned to the item in her hand, giving herself a perfect view of the flashbang moments before it-.

-Exploded, the gaze of one thousand flash bulbs seared Undyne's eye leaving her completely blind. Her ears failed her next starting with a thunderous bolt of pain through her head and leaving behind a deafening ring nullifying the world outside. She stumbled backwards, dazed and panicking, confused whether to cover her burning eye or her throbbing ears with her one hand that wasn't burning immensely. "AHG! WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU LITTLE, MY EYE!" Similar cries of pain accompanied the intelligible parts. Outside of her sensory deprived world, a figure of hatred slowly got to his feet while picking up his crowbar.

Brainz hobbled over to the spasming giant, still morbidly unbalanced from his anatomical "Achilles heel". Even though Undyne was rendered helpless from her condition, any slivers of mercy running through the man's head were ignored by his actions. With two hands and a burning warcry Brainz swung the blunt side of his crowbar like a bat using all of his strength and might, a miss would've spun him off balance into a dizzy twister. But he was luckier than that, at least more so than the monster on the wrong side of his weapon.

The bend crashed into Undyne's forehead with titanic force, the impact was mighty enough to resonate with a metallic * _BANG!*_ Similar to a bell being struck by a mallet. The recoil surged through the cool metal and ended in Brainz's knuckles signified by a series of loud and painful * _pops!*_ Both souls found themselves falling to the ground, only one of them didn't get back up.

 _Son of… a BITCH that hurt!_

Undyne had a similar grievance submitted in the form of a slurred grunt. Brainz was keen to that noise, she was out _cold._

His mind was still rampant with thoughts to regain his composure, but Brainz's body spoke on it's own. His voice was calm, a contradiction to how he felt on the inside. "I hope you're happy with yourself, you just kept pushing until something happened-." Brainz felt himself collecting his things. "Well, you were right about one thing, I guess we did give up. I mean, we gave up trying to _RESTRAIN_ and _HOLD BACK,_ our potential. I guess being attacked by a bigot like you could wear down on a man, y'know?"

 _What the fuck did I just say?_

The manifestation chuckled as it retrieved the loaded shotgun. "Alright, I think we're just about done here, I'll be taking what's mine now."

The cold barrels stared Undyne in the face with killing in their eyes. Brainz gazed through his alter ego's eyes at the unconscious face below. Just when he could feel the futility of what he was about to witness…. to do, he froze. Undyne lay on the ground with her one eye ajar staring at him but seeing nothing. But Brainz didn't see the eye itself but what was _behind_ it. There was a faint radiance, a glow. Somehow Brainz knew what he was looking at, he felt as if he had always known, it was hope. Such a concentration of hope that would persist even in death. Nothing Brainz could do to Undyne would be able to snuff it.

The realization poisoned his body, Brainz began to feel weak, heavier, he found it difficult to hold the shotgun out. Then he realized how it was HIM alone that was faltering, the bout of primal fury was nothing more than a transience. He was himself again.

There it was again, the wave of relief was followed by a surge of recurrent euphoria. The shiver ran through his body shaking every fiber, the shotgun fell to the ground and followed the impact with a loud discharge. "GAH!" Brainz fell over from the excitement and scrambled to Undyne's body, confused as hell.

He looked up from the large chestplate to see the smoke exhaling from the one barrel, bits of stone were piled against the rock that had received the blast. "Oh thank god." Brainz rolled onto his back next to Undyne counting the stars in the ceiling and catching a much desired breather. "God- what was that?- I've lost myself before- but that…." The exhausted man looked at his trembling hands and balled them into fists. "That was just horrible… I don't know what came over me."

Brainz felt his hands preparing another cigarette, it was instinct at this point. Smoking this much wasn't a wise thing to do, but Brainz had never felt so dependent on the damned carcinogens as he did now. He sucked down two cigarettes before he finally pulled himself together, at least enough to get up.

Undyne was still motionless, she looked like something out of a car accident. The once gleaming armor was littered with punctures; scratches, and dents; all topped with smears of blood that weren't hers. She wasn't dead though, quite alive… for now. Brainz could make that assumption by the audible snoring.

Brainz groaned from the persistent soreness in his undergut as he bent over to collect the shotgun again, all that did was give him a headache. He had felt dirty for brandishing the weapon before but now simply touching it made his stomach turn. There wasn't anyway around it, Brainz knew from the pain in his chest that his desire to even hold the awful thing… was gone. The gun split open, releasing the spent cartridge into his open hand.

"Fuck it." Brainz carefully removed the singed gauntlet from Undyne's hand, taking gratuitous precaution not to be rough. The shotgun shell was placed delicately in her limp grasp, the paper hull was still warm in the cool scaly claw. Brainz kneeled with Undyne for a while, part of him wanted to wait for her to get up, while the other was questioning himself why.

He examined his firearm for moments, running his hand up and down the worn steel barrels, feeling the notches for deceased opponents in the stock. This gun was his 'friend', while a declaration like that was reserved for branding someone as a psychopath, it was true for Brainz. He sighed dolefully at the matter, it was his only friend for a long time and here he was laying it down on Undyne's battered chestplate. It was his only friend _now_ but there just wasn't a point to holding it anymore. Apart from how sick he felt just looking at the thing, he had no ammo for it. It was no more than a source of heartache for the man, he already had more than enough of that.

"Look… I'm…" Brainz was almost choked by emotions for an anthropomorphic fish that tried to kill him. "I'm going to leave this with you, I don't know if you'll know what it is or if you can even hear me but… I want the first thing you think of when you do wake up to be this: I could've killed you right there and right now. Considering all that you've put me through physically and mentally, not to mention what you may put me through later, I _should've_ killed you-." Brainz brushed his pants off and stood up, starting his walk back into solitude. "-And I _would've_ killed you if-." Toriel continued to linger in his thoughts. "-If I didn't make a promise to someone special. So… I'm sorry for my behavior before, but it's over now. Don't follow me… please."

That would've been enough pain for one evening, but obviously Brainz _always_ deserved more, and his final dose stood behind sobbing frantically. Brainz saw his sins reflecting off the teary eyes of the yellow child before him.

It quivered with fear and sorrow. "W-what- what- have- What have you done?!" The grief had passed through the man and torn him apart just as any bullet could do, the damage inside had locked him up forcing him to witness the pain he had inflicted directly and indirectly. Brainz had a thick skin for the repercussions of his wrong doings, and he could show a lack of remorse easily. But children… "Y-you Killed her! You _killed_ her! WHY? WHY WOULD YOU _DO_ THIS?!"

Brainz merely shook his head in denial, afraid that the lump in his throat would burst if he opened his mouth.

Liquid misery streamed down the grizzling child's eyes, it's words were segregated by the gags it squeaked. "WHY - WOULD - YOU - DO - THIS? WHY?"

Brainz forced the lump down his throat and blurted out a defense. "No! Wait! It's not how it looks! I didn't-." He took a couple of steps towards the traumatized child with his arms held out.

The child retreated back and screamed. " _GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU AWFUL HUMAN!"_

Brainz was struck again. _Oh god no… please_

It shook its head rapidly, "That's what you are! I knew it all along!, You _KILLED,_ and you _LIED,_ and that's _all humans DO!"_

It was the first time the man felt sorrow down in this place, the pressure behind his eyes assured him of that.

As much as Brainz wanted to pull some quick fix and make everything better, he had nothing but the guilt from his actions.

"Undyne told me about people like YOU, but I didn't want to believe her and now she's DEAD because of it!" And just like that, it was gone, the patter of footsteps and sobs faded away leaving Brainz in the company of himself once more

"Kid… I'm sorry…" It was all the man could muster, but it was too little too late. Brainz clenched his teeth and forced the throbbing pain into his gut, all while forcing a _third_ cigarette into his gob. There was feeling feeling remorse for your deeds and there was holding your composure but Brainz just felt plain sick.

He eventually forced himself to keep going, waving back to Undyne weakly. "You see what I mean? Already causing me shit." The walk ahead was a quiet and lonely one, Brainz was utterly alone this time with not even his thoughts to talk to.

He trudged on, what was there to fester about? He won the fight, but didn't feel like a winner. In fact, he probably lost more than Undyne, she may have lost her consciousness but that paled in comparison to the man's grievances. His shotgun; the feeling in his testicles, his "friend", his cover, and his promise, they were all gone.

That was the queasiness in his stomach, it wasn't the potential nicotine poisoning (although that probably wasn't helping him either) from smoking so much, but the fragments of his broken promise prodding at his insides.

Hey may have left Toriel alone a ways back, but she never left his mind. How could she? His arm, the dream? This sentient goat was nothing short of an enigma to him, ranging from her kind nature to her elevated knowledge on the very humans that are taboo here. Plus, she just made him feel simply _guilty,_ and that was before the shotgun came into play. It bolstered itself on that old feeling of familiarity, he'd seen her before (or at least he could've sworn so). Not only that, but he felt strangely apologetic and shy towards her, like he did something to her in the past… something horrible.

That's what made this place the most nonsensical, he was certain that if he had seen anything like this, he would remember it, even in the wakes of the worst hangovers or bad trips.

"WELCOME TO HOTLAND!" The massive neon sign interrupted the glimpse of introspection.

"I don't _feel_ very welcome." The sign was the only friendly aspect about the land ahead Brainz began to notice quickly, it was getting _hot._ The dry air irritated his tobacco stained throat putting a cough into his breaths. "For fucks (*huff*) sakes, what is with (*hack*) place? (*gasp*) did I walk into someone's oven, or did I (*chck!*) check myself into hell!?"

Brainz got his answer, resting at a comfortable twelve hundred degrees fahrenheit, in a huge chasm joined by a flimsy. Wooden, * **Flammable*** bridge. "Lava… why am I not surprised?" Brainz cracked his depression with a round of hacks and a joke, "Oh I know, because I've seen Indiana Jones before."

"Heh, Good one."

 _Yep, this is hell._ Brainz turned to the patronizing voice, of all the things he wanted to say, listlessly… "Hello Sans."

Sans clicked his tongue from behind the sentry booth. "Jumpy." He wasn't treated to the usual form of comebacks from the human, all he got was a somber look. "S'matter Jumpy? You're not very…. Jumpy."

Brainz shrugged, tugging at the sweater collar for air. "Yeah… sorry, I'm not really feeling it right now, I don't feel too good."

Sans leaned on the countertop, pointing his other hand at the butt in the man's lips. "Hey man, I told you that those were bad for you, you really oughta *quit* while you're ahead."

"Thanks I guess, but I doubt it's the cigarettes-" Brainz _was_ going to make up some story about how the heat made him queasy or something like that but he wasn't in any mood to lie to this skeleton. Either Sans knew what he did, or he knew what he did, there wasn't any point in lying and **that…** was the one truth about this place. "-It's probably just the side effects of me hating myself, that's all."

Sans chuckled and played along. "Oh really now? And why's that?"

Brainz held his hands out and took a look at himself, he didn't like what he saw. "I'm sure you know Sans, and I'm sure that everyone down here's gonna think the same about me in a bit… so I guess I just caught on or something."

What Sans would say next surprised Brainz, "Oh I see, you're still hung up about that, I get it." It wasn't the fact that he (vaguely) knew what Brainz did, or how calm he was about it. But instead how he actually dropped the sarcasm, it sounded like he was being genuine. Sans continued, "Yeah, I know you're probably gonna wanna know what I know huh."

More than anything he could think of, But Brainz just shook his head slowly looking down at the ground. "No thanks."

Sans raised his nonexistent brow, Brainz looked up and made eye contact for more than five seconds, both of these things had never happened before.

"I don't think you need to tell me… same goes for me telling you what's happening, You know what's going on and I sure as hell don't, I haven't had a clue since I've spoke to a woman I never even knew existed and lied to her face. What i've gotten instead consisted of broken skin, broken spirits, broken memories, broken hearts, and broken promises. Pretty much everything I've come into contact with broke and here I am making myself out as a 'Johnny Do Gooder' pretending I'm above everything else and that I've done **nothing wrong** , and I know for a fact that you know the credibility in that."

 _Well that just came out of my mouth, felt good to be honest. Almost soothes the unbearable anxiety I'm about to feel from telling it to the creepiest guy down here._

"Wow." That was all Sans had to say about that, no wise cracks or sarcastic blurbs to mess with this man.

Brainz felt the ability to become skeptical come back, the knot in his stomach seemed to loosen a bit. "Wow…. what? What did I do?"

Sans started laughing, not a sly chuckle or an exaggerated snicker but he laughed like it was the funniest joke in the world.

It wasn't very funny to Brainz, he soured his expression. "What? You think I'm pulling your leg or something? I don't want to ruin whatever fun you're having out of me but I'm being honest with you."

Sans banged his hand against the counter... he'd bust a gut if had one.

Brainz scoffed providing the sarcasm into the conversation. "Great… glad I was able to come clean, I'll uh.. Be on my way to hell then if that's alright with you." Brainz approached the bridge holding the returning knot in his stomach.

Sans broke through the chuckles, "Wait Kid! Hold up a sec!"

Brainz grunted in outrage, "Kid? I'm forty- six!"

Sans leaned against the man's leg cooling his laughter. "That's exactly why this is so freaking funny-"

"What, that I'm forty-six?"

"-Nah, it's that you did something I haven't seen in a _real_ long time pal."

Brainz began to remember to be mad at this guy. " _ **What?!"**_

Sans looked up at him, the grin on his face looked more friendly "You surprised me." The surprise was shared now. "Sorry bout that, but that was the very first time I've ever heard something like that coming out of your mouth, I wasn't expecting it."

Brainz began to soften, he was still confused but just a little less frustrated. "Oh… uh, erm- what was that exactly?"

Sans got off of the man. "The truth."

"Oh… from how I've made myself out, it was the last thing you'd expect outta me huh. A lying sociopath..."

"You tell me…. over a round at Grillby's, I'm on break now and it looks like you could use one too."

Brainz rubbed his sweaty forehead. "Oh man- I dunno,,back in Snowdin is it? That's so far away and I've gone through hell just to get to hell."

Sans held out his bony hand, "Aww cmon now, I know a shortcut, we'll be in and out, just a little ten minutes."

 _I'll go with it, I just hope it doesn't involve me going back through the waterfall._ "Alright, I've got time to kill… I think."

Sans buried his hands in his pockets, making for the cave. "Cool, follow me."

Brainz did, but he had one more thing to ask. "So erm… being forty-six was a surprise?"

"Yep, I'd take ten off of the top before my guess on ya."

Brainz smirked cracking up a bit. "Really now? What would make you think like that?"

Sans shrugged. "I dunno, I don't know the first thing about age expression in years."

Brainz felt the smile leave his face. "Riiight, by the way one more thing… what job was that back there?"

"That? I'm on watch for the evil guy that beat up the captain of our Royal Guard."

"Oh." _Well shit…._

"Well this is just incredible! I would've never believed anything like it!" Pailurn took it all in behind the main desk, papers blanketing the worn surface."

" _Okay_ I get it already." Mordegrid pawed through a book rolling his eyes.

"But Mordegrid, I thought you'd be more into your _brilliant_ idea to divert the same manpower _**searching**_ for a dangerous felon, into rummaging through a dusty, glorified Library!"

Mordegrid tossed the work of literature over the railing, adding to the pile of misplaced books. Soldiers did the same, slowly morphing the timeless beauty of a Baroque structure into an unkempt mess.

"Ebott Wilderness Assimilated Document Repository, founded and built in the year 1694 Originally titled the Library of Kocrenzi for the tribe that inhabited our town before it was even a town! This building saw its share of visitors through British occupants during the American Revolution and even watched Sheridan's march to sea, but it was spared for its beauty and knowledge inside. This classical structure also served as a church and a schoolhouse! The Repository was updated in 1899 after a large relocation of literature and religious artifacts took place, specializing this building into its function today."

Mordegrid crumpled the dusty pamphlet in his grip and sighed, two hours of digging through old tomes and uninterested articles, a waste of time.

"Sarge, obviously this was a mistake I get that but, are you really gonna drop it all on me? What kinda Repository named after a stinking mountain has absolutely NO history about the stupid rock?"

Pailurn wasn't listening immersed in a crusade to purge the children's section of its neat shelves.

"Cmon Pailurn how was I supposed to know that the most interesting looking building in this crappy village was just as crappy? You're the freaking military and you're relying on ME for intel?"

Pailurn _did_ hear that one but he went forward with his little tantrum. "Sorry troops, I deprived the lot of you from potential medals of honor for maybe finding him outside of a dusty old library."  
Mordegrid wasn't thrilled about taking orders from someone above, but he was far less thrilled about finding someone more temperamental than him. "Whatever, I'm sure these-." Mordegrid held his arms open and gestured to the ten or so men scouring the room. "- _Fine_ gentlemen came closer to finding him in this old shack than sticking around outside. I bet that he's on his way out of state or something by now."

Pailurn stopped his assault on Charles Dicken's livelihood hearing that.

Mordegrid continued his retaliation. "This was probably some Federal war testing government bullshit or whatever that's way above our heads and certainly above the head of a single uninformed fugitive. We're probably wasting our time just narrowing this desolate forest, I should probably get into contact _my_ men and broaden the search outside of-."

"NO!" Everyone in the library became as motionless as the countless books hoarded on the floor, Pailurn cleared his throat and took the center of the room once he'd gotten this attention. "No… there is no need for you to do anything like that, like I told you earlier: Everything… is under… our control, we know he's within the borders, there's no ways IN or OUT." There was an exaggerated anger in his voice. " _I'll_ be the one who decides where we look and where we don't, is that coming through to you?"

Mordegrid shrugged skeptically, mouthing a silent outrage "What?!" He was a little less silent on the inside, _What kind of bullshit is this?!_ _I'D take all the help I can get!_ _I'm taking orders from 'Sergeant Stupid' and his pride! If the fucking army can't get anything on this place with all the time in the world, WHY would ONE man with only SECONDS before lying in a puddle of himself do any better! This is a COLOSSAL waste of resources!"_

… "Yes sir."

Pailurn let out a satisfied sigh, "Good! Now, I think that's enough for now, Kilo team get back with your officers and put out one more patrol for the evening, while you've still got the sunlight, hell take something to entertain yourselves with when you're done, get _something_ out of this relic of a building."

The soldiers emptied out of the building, a few with books in their hands. Mordegrid and Pailurn were left in the dust, illuminated by the retreating sun through murky windows.

"Jesus it's disgusting in here, I doubt anyone's gonna notice-" Mordegrid motioned towards the mess of books on the floor. "- the *renovations* looks like we've been the first ones in here since a hundred years."

Pailurn brushed the sediments off his sleeves heading towards the door. "You're not wrong there, this place was completely locked up and desolate even before we relocated all the residents, looks like even they knew it was useless."

Mordegrid leaned against the reception desk, streaking the layer of dust with his finger. "I guess I should've figured it'd be something like this. I mean what would you expect out of a speck on the map like this place?"

Pailurn rolled his eyes, speaking with faux assurance. "It's fine, it was worth a shot, but the real stuff's coming soon don't you worry-" He sneezed. "God, I'm outta here, feel free to follow when you're not tired of breathing." The stocky man shut the doors behind, treating Mordegrid to a confetti toss of more dust.

Mordegrid sat himself down on the most uncomfortable chair kicking his feet up on the most unclean desk in the most unuseful library in the world, feeling pretty unhelpful sighing some more. "Out of all the let downs so far, you're just the _worst,_ absolute trash." He retrieved one of the scolded pieces of paper, "CHECK OUT RECORDS 1997." It went to floor, Mordegrid scoffed at the irrelevance and grabbed another document. "LIBRARY SUBMISSIONS 1914." _Rubbish._ Also to the floor. He was just bored at this point, the closest allies to the dated records met a similar fate.

"EMPLOYMENT 1995-..."  
"DAMAGED OR MISPLACED BOOKS 1995-1997"  
"TAX RECORDS 1997"

"BUSINESS CALENDAR 1996-1997"  
The trend continued through the trail of disorganized sheets until Mordegrid met a defeated filing cabinet spilling the secrets. Pailurn did his damage to the container, the lock lay in pieces among the files, yet the previous and later cabinets in the row were spared… in fact, they weren't even locked.

 _And you chewed me out for wasting your time, what the hell were you doing back here?_

Mordegrid toured down the line of bland metal boxes. "All the way from Eighteen-Ninety to…" He paused on the destroyed cabinet, it was the latest one to brandish a label. "Nineteen Ninety-Seven ?" The label itself was curious, the first part was neatly printed, probably by a typewriter or something archaic. "1995-." However, the ending date didn't properly exist, instead it had been transcribed hastily (sloppily too) by a black marker. "- **1997**."

Mordegrid ceased to feel sorry for himself, too curious at this point. Pailurn didn't feel that this was important enough to mention, but Mordegrid felt another doubt coming on. "Alright what're we hiding here?"

According to the cabinets after '1997' nothing. They were completely unused. Mordegrid took a full survey of the library from the reception desk, every surface that hadn't been ransacked was sheltered by a consistent layer of dust. This building wasn't a mess, it was a time capsule. "My god, this place hasn't been touched for twenty years!" Mordegrid wiped the schmutz off of his hands, still looking around. Besides the dust, it didn't look abandoned prior to the army's visit, everything _was_ neatly in place as if the building would be open again tomorrow.

"Everything stopped in Ninety-Seven… but why? If my theory on the government claiming this land was true, they wouldn't _just_ close the library and keep the residents. And even then, so long ago?… No." Mordegrid paced around compulsively trying to find some clues. "I just don't get it! The windows aren't boarded up or anything, there are no postings condemning this place, nothing! Did everyone just decide to bail on this place ? What the fuck?" Mordegrid had developed a recurring cough throughout his stay, the latest fit of hacks put him back into his volatile state.

With the dimming light of a retreating sun paired with a failure to pay attention Mordegrid's walk was impeded by a mischievous leg belonging to a pew, sending him to the floor.

" _Daugh!_ God Damn you Brainz! You knew- _you probably knew, you little shit_ about this mindfuck of a town didn't you?!"

Mordegrid got up and punished the wooden bench with a series of kicks and complaints belonging to someone else.

"Of course you would, you _always_ would!-" *THUMP!* "-It's just your idiosyncrasy, to be a-" *THUMP!* "-Huge Asshole, who gets off by wasting- my- TIME!."

*THUN- _CLIK!_ *

"What the?"

The chastised leg of the bench shifted inwards like a lever.

"What the hell?" He tried to move the whole seat, but could only nudge it within a couple of inches. Now he was aroused, Mordegrid brandished the trusty maglite and brought himself back to the dirty floor.

This wasn't an ordinary pew, with all the gears and rails under the surface, it could've been a recliner, Mordegrid slid the leg back and forth to a procession of * _cliks!*_ and * _Klacks!*_ Then he noticed the hideous fabric covering the chapel floor, they looked like something out of the clearance bin at a thrift store, a cluster of throw rugs patched together. The rest of the building was outfitted with granite tiles.

The suspicion kept building, Mordegrid tore one of the *puke green* squares out of the plaid floor with nothing but velcro resisting him.

"Now what kinda Rube Goldberg Bullshit is this?"

The ugly rugs were easily out of place in a classical structure, but they were dwarfed by the stainless steel plates resting below. Mordegrid felt a smile growing off of his face with each rug torn out of the floor, he was scheming excitedly by the time he'd uncovered the historical inaccuracy in the floor. "Oh man, wait till he gets a load of this shit!" Mordegrid almost dropped his flashlight fumbling for his radio. "Pailurn! Grab a gas mask or something and get back here! You're not gonna believe this, I already don't!"

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE**

 **If you've gotten this far, maybe you're willing to go a little farther.**

 **Firstly, for anyone who genuinely enjoyed this story and wished for it to continue to thrive and grow: I wish to apologize for going dormant these few years.**

 **I have since switched writing mediums to AO3, as I've discovered it far better suited my needs and provided me with the proper tools and options I desired to convey the raw emotions and feelings I've wanted to give to this story.**

 **I've gone through a lot of maturing in the past years and with me, this story has followed.**

 **While the contents are much different now: it is still the same intended story in its heart: it is just far more developed and thought out now.**

 **If you would like to see this story it its new life**

 **Search this parameter (Preferably on Google)**

 _The Monster who Bled Undertale_

 **You will find a link to a chapter in the story: Under the name "Bad_Dreems" and "Mz_Mere" My co-author.**

 **I hope you'll enjoy entering this world as much as we have creating it.**


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